I post from time to time about segments or whole This American Life shows. The program is remarkable both in content and durability. In a recent program, Act 1. was about Ghost stories. Specifically, it was about ghost stories in … Continue reading When Stories Go Bad
The state of American immigration is misunderstood, misapplied and subject to a lot of hysteria. To me it continues to amaze that a country where you can drive for hours east and south in Colorado, west in Texas, and pass nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m sure there are other US States where you can do this, I’ve just not driven through them. America, with a number of Western countries, not least mine, the UK, have created massive disturbances and in some cases, wars persist as a direct result of our actions. Yet we have largely uninhabited geographic areas as big as … Continue reading The State of American Immigration
Growing up in the 60’s, and the brave new era of TV, I can remember with great fondness some of the eloquent, important speeches given by US Presidents. To an Englishman, the accent, and diction were fascinating. One of my … Continue reading Diction, Eloquence, ISIS and The Big Lie
I often think to myself about coincidences, there are often times when I wonder if that was just a coincidence, but I’m most often decide it wasn’t. If you know me, you’ll know I’m a great believer in making you own luck and thus, it’s not a coincidence, it’s a result of a conscious, or unconscious action or decision. That doesn’t mean coincidences don’t exist, this weeks This American Life has some great stories, enjoy! Continue reading Coincidences
OK, so I’m tired, I was out really late last night and I had to go to the Travis County tax office for 8am this morning to sign away the title for my VW CC aka, sell my car. Afterwards, I’m in my new car, heading to work and I decided to catch-up on the January 11th This American life, the episode is #484, Doppelgängers. After an intro which included a Saturday Night Live actor imitating TAL show host, Ira Glass, they get down to act one. A story about food and food lookalikes. The real Ira Glass says “A … Continue reading Know where your food comes from?
What with Football players inventing dead girlfriends, cyclists deceiving everyone most of the time, sometimes lying can be difficult to understand, not the lie, but the motivation and more importantly, often why people believe lies in the face of reasonable evidence. This American Life nails it as usual. Listen along online, or download episode 173 Continue reading Deception
Comedians Steven Colbert and Bill Maher have made much recently about the Super PACs which are dominating this years presidential elections, Maher going so far as to donate $1-million dollars to President Obama’s PAC for reelection. And ever since I’ve lived in the US, I’ve been astounded at the amount of time and effort that seems to go into raising money for elections. Especially since a large amount of it seems to be used to support activities which really don’t represent anything that most people would attribute as American values and strengths, optimism, the ability to achieve anything you put your mind to etc. Money … Continue reading Money and Politics