• I haven’t had time or mental space to write anything substantial this week. But here are a few interesting things I’ve run across. At First Thoughts, the First Things blog, here’s one of those silly little games that book and music lovers like to play:  If you had a shelf of books to help explain…

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  • There was an argument between BP and Transocean hours before the explosion, ending with a BP official telling Transocean to do it their way, and a Transocean manager saying "I guess this is what we have a blowout preventer for." BP apparently had the last word. 

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  • They're beginning a new attempt to cap the oil spill. Hope and pray that they'll be successful. http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/26/gulf.oil.spil/index.html?hpt=T1 (By the way, for those of us who are not big fans of President Obama, there's a real temptation here to try to put some blame on him. But it doesn't belong there. And it didn't belong…

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  • Baby Pictures

    At my son-in-law's Flickr gallery. The second one, where he's holding on to his mother's hand, is my favorite.

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  • …but I have a feeling this approach is not going to work. Right, nobody else ever played Beethoven with feeling. About a dozen of these showed up on eMusic this morning. I don't know whether "all female" is meant to have the connotations of "sisterhood is powerful" or "Lingerie Football League," but I don't think…

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  • Habemus Grandson

    Sunday Night Monday Morning Journal — May 24, 2010 Emmitt Samuel Tynes, born at 12:43AM, 7lb 5oz (about 3.3 kilograms). Mother and baby are both fine, or more than fine: mother looked remarkably fresh at 2AM after being in labor for somewhere around twelve hours, and Emmitt is strikingly alert and hungry, and seemingly good-tempered…

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  • It occurs to me that the oil spill is a lot like most products of the entertainment industry: a big ugly toxic cloud spreading over and into everything. Which makes it more than a little ironic that most Hollywooders preach environmentalism. And hypocritical as well, since they tend to preach rather then practice–actually cutting back…

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  • Maybe you've wondered why I haven't said anything about this disaster in progress. I think it's mainly because I feel somewhat stunned and fatalistic: it's totally out of my hands, and I'm just waiting to see how bad it's going to be. So far the effects have been less obviously catastrophic than one might have…

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  • …and I think I will let this be a warning not to start: I think I can imagine the agony of this poor man (contra Derb, and hat tip thereto).

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  • You really can never have too much Bach and Mozart in your music collection, can you?

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