They Will Rise Again From the Tundra

Goodbye, Battlestar Galactica.

It took me nearly a week to finally sit down and write this post, to shake off the dread, the chills, and the night sweats and claw my way to the computer to bid farewell to what?  A goddamned TELEVISION SHOW.

Alas, everything I’ve just said is true, and it is with a deep sense of loss and sadness that I write this post, beset by flashbacks of Bill and Lee Adama, Kara Thrace, Laura Roslin, Saul Tigh, and yes, almost especially that weasel-until-just-before-the-end Gaius Baltar.  This is horrifying.  To think I would feel such a crippling sense of estrangement like a vice around my heart knowing full well that I will never see a new episode of Battlestar, flawed as it was but nonetheless an almost majestic Sci Fi Channel series that provided such uncharacteristic depth for a show of its kind or, for that … Read more

An Iraqi court handed down a sentence today for Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi journalist who became instantly famous worldwide for throwing his shoes at then-President George W. Bush back in January. Three years in prison. Three years to sit with his pejorative from that day ringing in his ears: “This is your farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans, and those who were killed in Iraq.” Al-Zeidi can sit in his cell for all that time knowing that his actions were not lost on his fellow Iraqis nor on the millions of Americans who only wish they’d received a similar opportunity.

It’s been less than two months since Barack Obama took the Oath of Office and formally ended Bush’s eight-year reign of shock and terror. It seems like a distant nightmare now — or it would if we weren’t still quaking from the aftershocks of an … Read more

I felt it last week.  Spring.

The temperature rocketed up into the high-50s, and the atmosphere became unstable.  That night was marked by incessant thunder and lightning and a torrential rain that prompted a Flash Flood Warning form the National Weather Service in Romeoville, Illinois.  As far as severe weather, there was never anything to worry about.  By the time the storm hit, the temperature had fallen into the 40s, which is too cold to support any meaningful punch.  Strong thundestorms, for the most part, simply can’t survive in such conditions, but it was a warning of sorts.  Storm season is coming.

As a Chicago suburbanite, I’m no stranger to bad thunderstorms, nor would I consider tornadoes a rarity having been relatively close to a couple of them myself.  Hell, in the late summer of 2008, eight tornadoes touched down in Will County on the same day (a fact that … Read more