Richard Pipes, workin’ it
Some things I learned from the late Richard Pipes.
Archive of posts filed under the mind category.
Eat when you can
I joined the Albuquerque Journal in 1990 in what I now think of as “the golden age of journalism”. That’s shorthand for reliable access to expense account travel, but something more. If, as it often was, the story happened to be at a nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico, or at an Air Force …
I am a Californian. I am a Westerner. I proudly wear flip-flops.
In his dissent from the majority on today’s gay marriage ruling, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia weighed in on a central question confronting those of us in the western United States: Is California in The West? The court, Scalia notes, contains “not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner. …
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#CharlestonSyllabus
In one of those wonderful emergent social media moments yesterday, a suggested reading list emerged on Twitter, hashtagged #CharlestonSyllabus. I have two personal contributions. I’ve written previously in this space about Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. It’s a powerful economic history arguing that America’s great …
University of New Mexico Water Resources Program: my newly remodeled career
Thursday morning I found myself standing knee deep in the Rio Grande. Grinning. University of New Mexico water resources faculty members Mark Stone (that’s Mark in the green shirt helping the knee-deep students learn to measure river flow) and Becky Bixby were out at the river with the summer field course students. It was a trial run …
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My life becomes self-parody
In Las Vegas for a two-day conference on the Colorado River law and policy. Checked into my hotel room, looked out the window to see the Bellagio Fountains: My life has become self-parody.
Just FYI, I have a birthday coming up
Brian Devine gets how awesome this could be: @jfleck If you could mount it on buoyant outriggers it would make the sweetest Lake Havasu party boat EVER — Brian Devine (@bedevine25) March 19, 2015
Overheard on the bus: Beowulf
Overheard on the 766 Rapid Ride bus as it pulled into downtown Albuquerque…. Guy standing in the aisle: “Is that a good book?” Guy seated: “I don’t know, I haven’t read it yet.” Pause. “It’s as old as fuck, though.” I look over to see the guy sitting across the aisle from me has a …
Joys, expected and unexpected, of the shift in my day job
I no longer have to shave, wear work shirts, and eschew the Oxford comma. The first two I expected. The third has been a pleasant surprise.
Geomorphology of a fake lake
I’m fascinated by the geomorphic traces left by the rise and fall of Lake Mead – human scale (egret scale?) shoreline terraces. This is on the northern bank above Boulder Harbor. The bird, shown for scale (I don’t have a rock hammer, it’s a great egret, so quite large), hangs out there because of the …