Though I do not see her as the anti-Christ that many bloggers do, Maureen Dowd is largely a glib, fatuous, fantasy-liberal boob. In a rare case of demonstrable sentience, however, Dowd has gone 1-for-2 in her latest columns. On the 13th she exhibited an actual sense of how blogs work …

I just put up a fairly extensive post about the Blackout – which now appears to have begun right here in Northeast Ohio – on my Cleveland.com blog: I hope you are well, safe, and not terribly inconvenienced after 100 power plants in eight states and two Canadian provinces went …

Concrete Blonde, the veteran trio led by singer-bassist Johnette Napolitano and guitarist Jim Mankey, recently released a fine new live double-CD, Live In Brazil, which proves they still have it. But while the group evolved into a moody pop band over the years, on their great ’86 debut (produced by …

Another amazing 20-year anniversary, Bronski Beat’s The Age of Consent. Twenty years ago I was not having an easy time adjusting to the knowledge that a very close family member was gay. I was not particularly homophobic – my wife at the time worked in retail and had many gay …

The rather stark photo on the cover of Annie Lennox’s new CD Bare reminds us she isn’t getting any younger, but it’s still hard to believe the Eurythmics’ (Lennox’s duo with Dave Stewart) best two albums, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) and Touch, were both released twenty years ago. …

Today is my lovely, charming, talented, often-sweet-but-sometimes-flinty, opinionated-but-not-dogmatic, very pregnant and feeling self-conscious about it (December, boy) wife’s birthday. She thinks she’s getting old – due to the fact that we all age at the same rate, she’ll always be young to me. She is a remarkable, loving mother and …

With the Stones running around conquering the world 40 years after their first tour, I thought it might be interesting to look back at the formative years when things were still fluid and an institution they were not. I talked to the Stones’ original manager and producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, …

Very interesting tale of blogging intrigue and infighting from CNET that I missed on vacation: The conflict centers on something called Really Simple Syndication (RSS), a technology widely used to syndicate blogs and other Web content. The dispute pits Harvard Law School fellow Dave Winer, the blogging pioneer who is …

We watched Twister on TV twice on our vacation – we missed the beginning the first time and the ending the second time so it all evened out. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit we loved it. Our almost-four-year-old called it “the movie with cows and tomatoes.” I believe she …

CNN is reporting massive blackouts: Major power outages reported in New York City, other parts of Northeast, Cleveland, Detroit and other cities. Details soon. Does anyone know anything about this? I am in suburban Cleveland but we aren’t having any problems – I guess if you have no electricity you …