On...Texas Tea

Black Gold

Author of the award-winning history of oil, The Prize, has a new article in Foreign Policy magazine where he examines the controversial and volatile necessity of OIL in our modern world.

It's Still the One by Daniel Yergin

On...Fall Books

An Autumn Read

Quick link also from Slate.com that lists a number of books/novels coming out this fall. Sort of a small Fall Book Preview.

HERE

On...Forest Hills Garden

Suburbia

Slate.com just posted this image montage of Forest Hills Garden development in Queens, NY from 1909. It reminded me that I meant to blog more about my trip to NYC and my time with Professor Ken Jackson of Columbia (first-rate urban historian). I read his classic book Crabgrass Frontier, which among many things covered the history of suburban development. I'm partial to the Forest Hill Gardens style and not the Levittown style that clearly won in the 20th century. Hopefully more mindful development will be at the forefront of the 21st. Ah, to have a billion or two (dollars that is).

HERE for FOREST HILLS

HERE for Crabgrass Frontier

On...Afghanistan History

Historian Frederick Kagan has a nice article on the historical events that led up to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 for those who are interested.

Link HERE

On...Wading into a Bog

That Bog Would be Health Insurance Reform

I've avoided this topic for a while and I really don't want to get too far into it because I'm not a medical/insurance expert in any way shape or form and too many people with too little information are wading into this mess. Unfortunately I don't think those opposed to Obamacare or whatever you call it can't stop it. This debate should have been happening back in September and October of 08 not now. These Americans (and they are Americans, we all are Americans no matter how obnoxious) should have thought this over and actually listened to the debates and voted for McCain, but I digress. The votes are in. The Dems run the show with big numbers. They just need to tame the herd.

However, I do think we can force a watering down of the great leap to socialized medicine but that's about it--another step, maybe two, but not a sprint. Team Obama botched that reality all on their own. He does seem a little out of step with Congress--meaning he lets Pelosi and Reid run the show, which is a disaster always in the making. Thankfully. He should have been more direct and said "I want this and this and this, you can debate this and this only. Give me the bill the way I want it." But alas...

Supporters of Health Insurance Reform (which is almost everyone, but how the reform should go is the great difference) should read these two articles below just so they understand a little more about aspects of the debate they may have ignored: Preventive Care and Life Expectancy

Jonah Goldberg has a very solid point about cost and life expectancy in his New York Post article

Charles Krauthammer illuminates how preventive care actually increases costs in the long run.

On...No More Czars!!!!

STOP USING THAT PHRASE!

I have been meaning to write about this topic for a loooooooong time, but I have never got around to it. The topic is Czars. Not the Romanovs or any other of their ilk, but the neo-czars appointed by presidents for the last 25 years. The Drug Czars of the Reagan era were the first (at least to my memory) and that was about it until now. I could handle this one slip. But no more. President Obama or should I say Czar-in-Chief Obama is utterly obsessed with this term. (or someone on his staff--car czar, insurance czar, etc) It is ridiculous and insulting to all democratic Americans to have czar anything. We have elected leaders not autocratic tyrants. Why does anybody think giving someone unlimited power (albeit in a small context) is a good idea? It can only make such abuse seem normal and commonplace to the masses. We never want them getting used to such an reality. Humanity has spent hundreds of years trying to rid the world of despots and this administration has taken an annoyance to a whole new level. They are encouraging the underminding of republican institutions. Enough already.

Lurita Doen in USA Today finally had a piece on this same topic, HERE, which sparked my thoughts this morning.

PS
LA TIMES had a similar piece back in March. Guess it hasn't slowed the movement.

on...The Last Link of the Great War

Came Across this powerfully reflective piece about World War I and its long influence--even as the last veterans leave us.

By Simon Heffer

We are Still Lost in the Mystery of that War from the Telegraph UK