After reading a 215-page history on swimming, it’s hard not to realize that the one constant is that kids will make do. Our childhood memories are ours, and they are priceless. But whatever water today’s kids splash in, their memories will be just as cherished.

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Posted at 22 August 07 at 20.08 in Miscellaneous, Books

Lisa Margoneli’s Oil on the Brain: Adventures from Pump to Pipeline is not a book about oil. It is a book about the world’s energy supply, demand, and future. But then again: it is about oil after all.

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Posted at 20 August 07 at 22.08 in Books

Truthfully, any essay on Stalin should elaborate at length on the millions he killed, on the horrors of his purges, and on his development of the GULAG. It should talk about his chronic mismanagement of collectivization, of the war, and of consumer goods. It should talk about his destruction of Soviet genetics and art and culture. But all of those things are old hat, and so this will instead be a collection of several more eclectic comments.

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Posted at 16 August 07 at 20.08 in Books

With Metro, as with almost everything, the District of Columbia proves to be itself a monument as much as it is the city of monuments. Metro is a testament to the value of liberalism. It is an example of how a belief that things don’t have to go the easy way can go a long way – that a little more money is worth it for good design and good service – that people can come together to build something for their community but also for all communities – and that government can work.

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Posted at 07 August 07 at 21.08 in Politics, Culture, Books

“We are in the early stages of a long struggle. Yet since 9/11, we’ve heard a lot about what America can’t do or shouldn’t do or won’t even try. That is not the America that I know. The America I know is the whose strength abroad is measured not just by armies, but rather by the power of our ideals, and by our purpose to forge an ever more perfect union at home. We just have to act like it again to write that next chapter in the American story.”

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Posted at 04 August 07 at 13.08 in Politics, Obama 08