http://www.democraticunderground.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Tue, 21 May 2013 09:28:53 Tue, 21 May 2013 09:28:53 For instant gratification, though, Chapter 6 of Broom of the System is probably the funniest chapter I've ever read. It deals with a conversation held in a restaurant next to a glutton that the characters cannot ignore, despite their efforts to concentrate on their own issue.

Get it from the libr... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/10 Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:07:59 I killed a dog once, with my car. I didn't know it at the time. When it happened, the car bumped slightly, and I heard a sound that I likened to hitting a small bag of dry concrete with the tire. Ka-thump. That was it.

The sound and bump was enough that I stopped the car within a block and pulle... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/9 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:24:36 There are few things I can say with precision about much of my youth. The years are a blurred mess of jumbled memories and flashes -- themes more than scenes.

But the years when my family lived in California in the 1970s stand out to me more clearly than any others. Perhaps it was because of the... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/8 Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:48:38 My mother's dad joined the Army because all of his friends did. It was less out of a sense of duty than a wish to fall in with the crowd. It's not that he wasn't a patriot, but joining wasn't his idea, just one to which he subscribed.

He was sent to Europe and fought in World War I. My mother doe... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/7 Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:48:50 That's when I first heard of Wallace, via a clipping sent to me by a friend in Chicago. It was an author profile written right after [i]Infinite Jest[/i] began catching on in a big way.

Coincidentally, this morning I was sorting through old office papers and personal letters and came across that ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/6 Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:41:27 Grandpa was a farmer, and for the first part of his life, so was my father. His side of the family is pure Czech farming stock, through and through. And the town in South Dakota where they lived was populated by families just like theirs, lots of them directly and indirectly related.

By the time ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/5 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:18:08 You captured an essence of a mentality I've been trying to put my finger on for a while -- the Republican trait of always claiming to be at the mercy of government or public opinion or whatever. They present a distinct sense of lack of control over one's own life. I've seen it in crystal clarity in ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/4 Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:48:06 The issue of being pro-life in practice only with regards to one issue or being pro-family only so far as the family fits a 1950s stereotypical suburban white family--all of this brings up one of the things that I feel underlies any number of problems... or if not problems, then complications when i... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/3 Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:34:21 that has become part of our societal thinking to a point that its existence is taken as a given, that it's a reasonable option for the resolution of certain crimes. But such thinking ignores a valid discussion on whether it's humane, whether it effectively serves any deterrent value, and whether it ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/2 Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:58:43 Regardless of the undotted i's and uncrossed t's in the election, overall I'm encouraged that reason's heart still beats in America. I knew there was a glimmer of common sense still alive in this country.

Not quite as important as the restoration of balance in Washington, but still critical, is ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/InternalDialogue/1 Wed, 08 Nov 2006 12:07:26