Eric Scheske

Summer Reading Blessed Summer sits 48 hours away. My reading list has more-or-less come together. For your general edification or amusement, here it is: I enjoy few things more than a writer's random journals. Such prose is particularly well-suited to random Summer days. And it&

An aquarium in the U.K. claims that it has the world's first vegetarian shark. Either that or they're playing a really mean prank on Nigel the tank cleaner. Fallon Al Gore has a new girlfriend. Apparently, it's getting pretty serious. He's

Failbook Last Thursday, a family member had access to Facebook shares at $43 per share (IPO price: $38). I asked him if he could get me in. He looked into it and said he couldn't. I just shrugged, since I knew virtually nothing about the offering, whether the

Autobiographical Corner Well, the worse of the busy season is almost behind me: the little girls' soccer leagues are done (I did my final Hell stint Saturday morning, watching back-to-back games in scorching hot field for over two hours; I felt out-of-whack the rest of

"You ask how to put away anger: as soon as you feel the slightest resentment, collect yourself gently and seriously, not hastily or impetuously." St. Francis de Sales

Fat Tax A new fat tax to induce thinness [http://www.theindychannel.com/health/31079697/detail.html]? It wouldn't surprise me, but all people need to do is get grains and sugar out of their diets, yet at the same time that they're talking about a

"[T]here has always been a conflict between power-seeking moral reformers and the 'lowbrow' culture of saloons, immigrant and black resistance to work, shopping, dance halls, rock-and-roll, and the ever-advancing sexual revolution." That's Thaddeus Russell, writing in his splendid A

"So it is with the love of money, the love of power and the other maladies that affect the minds of men--you may be sure that it is when they abate and give every appearance of being cured that they are at their most dangerous." Seneca, Letter

Bullets Is California the new Greece? "California's budget deficit has exploded 73% in a mere four months. In January, it was $9.2 billion. Now Gov. Jerry Brown says it's $16 billion. Whoops, guess the 'recovery' isn't everything it's