Lit City Blues

LOCAL ENDORSEMENTS: Y'all, there's an election next Tuesday! I know it's an off-year election and not particularly sexy, but every election is important and there are some local issues (and candidates) to consider on the ballot this year both for School Board and for City Council. Let's start with the School Board . I don't really have any strong feelings about any of these candidates. I feel like Malone and Claussen have done a good job while on the Board, I see no reason not to re-elect them. Burrus with her background in data science intrigued me, but Pilcher-Hayek is already deeply involved in the District, being co-President of the DPO and Sheila Pinter, while not as outside the box as Phil Hemingway was, does provide a different perspective, which I think would be important to have in the mix for the Board. With all that said, I'm going to give the nod to: J.P. Claussen, Ruthina Malone, Maka Pilcher-Hayek, and Sheila Pinter. There's also a ballot quest

Ever since Apple TV became a thing, there have been two shows that I have been itching to watch: The Morning Show and For All Mankind and when my Google Pixel finally gave up the ghost and I switched back to Team iPhone, it came with a free three-month trial of Apple TV, so I sat down and got binging. I don't know what it is about workplace dramedies, but I'm always up for a good one and right off the bat, The Morning Show proved that it's a great one. The show opens with longtime co-anchor Mitch Kessler (Steve Carrell) being fired amid allegations of sexual harassment. That revelation throws the entire show into chaos, including Mitch's longtime co-anchor, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) who has to announce his firing and then grapple with the fact that both the network and Mitch had kept her in the dark about the full extent of his harassment.  Meanwhile, a local reporter and firebrand Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) goes viral when she angrily fact-checks a coal m

I didn't watch.  In retrospect, that seems almost sacrilegious to admit- but in my defense, I don't have cable or live streaming at the moment. I also get a little superstitious sometimes. I get paranoid that as soon as I start watching or listening things go awry and it all goes pear-shaped, so I didn't watch. I figured that I followed the game versus Maryland last week on Twitter and Iowa stomped 'em, so my superstitious game brain figured a good result from doing that last week more or less demanded the same this week. Happily, it turns out that superstitious game brain was correct and Iowa won. This was the first top-five match-up in Kinnick Stadium since #1 Iowa versus #2 Michigan all the way back in 1985. That would make it titanic enough, but it was also the first Big Ten top-five match-up not involving either Michigan or Ohio State since 1962. In every way, this was Iowa's biggest game in decades and it more than lived up to the billing.  I had a roommate in

The gentle beep of her alarm woke Sarah up. She rolled over and stared up at her ceiling, trying to gather her thoughts. Coffee. I need coffee. It was going to be one hell of a day. With an audible groan, she sat up and then swung her legs over the edge of the bed, taking a deep breath. “Get. Up. It’s time… to… get...up.” With another groan that turned into a yawn, she forced herself upright and padded across the plush carpeted floor to the bathroom. She shucked off her clothes and turned on the shower- this one had the option for water, but not wanting to be wasteful, she opted for a sonic shower.  It had been six months and Sarah didn’t want to admit it to herself, but finally, she had given up the struggle inside her own head: she was the Director of the Malagasy Venusian Authority and she had the best job in the solar system. A few minutes later, she emerged from her new apartment building and started heading up the avenue toward Antananarivo Tower, past the baobab trees, sipping h

I did a lot of research focused on South Asia for my Master's Thesis, so I've been slowly collecting books over the years that, should I ever go back and take a run at a Ph.D., would help me have a well of potential historical and source material to call upon- or at least be familiar with, as I would plan to focus on South Asia in some way should I ever get that wild hair up my behind to go back and get a doctorate. And in that sense, The Anarchy is an excellent addition to a small and growing collection of books. But, it is also a fascinating historical account in and of its own right. It traces the story of the East India Company- from its humble beginnings in 1599 when it received a royal charter that granted them a monopoly on all trade between England and Asia. Early on, no one really took the English all that seriously. The Portuguese and the Dutch were still the dominant trading forces in the region and the English were just trying to get a foot in the door.  Their att