With a tip of the hat to Meg, some entries I never got around to writing:
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Digital media content providers have blown it. Because of their obsession with preventing everyone who hasn’t paid them directly for the privilege from enjoying digital versions of their content (an obsession they didn’t develop to such an exaggerated degree with the analog versions of their content, by the way), they have ceded control of the industry (if not all of the profits… yet) to Apple and Microsoft. There was a chance to come up with some sort of open digital rights management protocol or standard (akin to SSL, for instance) that would have made media file format providers far less central to the industry, but that moment has long passed. At this point, we just have to wait and see if Apple wins and we all join the cult, or if Microsoft wins and we’re all rebooting our home theater systems daily ten years from now. Unless, of course, Yahoo’s disconcertingly rational approach carries the day…
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From Bruce Arena’s stubborn failure to the atrocious ABC commentators, the United States should be deeply ashamed about its participation in this year’s World Cup.
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Is faith the antithesis of reason, or the complement of reason? Is it the basis of reason, or the result of reason? Is faith dogma or trust? Could fundamentalists who won’t allow their beliefs to be examined really be said to have faith in those beliefs? Is there a single act in our lives that isn’t enabled or informed by some sort of faith?
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Ulysses is almost certainly an Irish sutra. When first I read it, just getting my Master’s degree from Yale and trying to figure out how I had changed, it was the key to cultural accomplishment. When next I read it, under the influence of Harold Bloom, it was a most astonishing act of characterization. As I read it now, it is undoubtedly a Western pointing out instruction.
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morgannels 
Cassius is a cutie!
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Yes. Luckily, he didn’t inherit my looks.
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I have to agree with you re DRM. The industry is split down the middle between Apple and Microsoft (plus a handful of third-rate players like Google and Real). What’s even worse is that apparently Microsoft is fragmenting their own DRM solution with “Zune” which will ape the iPod/iTunes/iTMS strategy with one line of devices, one player, one store. All “PlaysForSure” devices will be locked out of Zune so they may want to rethink the brand name.
DRM will ultimately fail as does every technology that has existed more for the provider than the consumer.
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Uncle Morgan (heh),
Go rent “Dodgeball” for a hilarious parody of sports commentators. It was one of the few scenes in a movie that has made me laugh out loud in the past few years.
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Hi, Morgan. I made another pass at it and finally got my password for your site to work. So here I am. I don’t know if you also got the email I sent yesterday AM. At the risk of repeating myself, I’m delighted to see you back. I’ve been scarce myself, since I’ve been posting over at DailyKos. Don’t feel quite ready to give up my old blog yet, but I’m posting there less frequently, for sure.
Did you go to LA to visit your nephew? That’s a great photo.
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Even the Dodgeball commentators (as hilariously exaggerated as they were) weren’t anywhere near as bad as Marcello Balboa.
I’m sorry to hear that there have been password problems. Has anyone else run into that?
I did go to see my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew almost a month ago, though technically in Orange County, which is blessedly different from Los Angeles (if only because I didn’t have to fly into LAX). It was wonderful to see them, and it was the calmest, most peaceful home I’ve ever seen with an infant in it.
I haven’t had much time or energy lately, and what spare time and energy I have had has gone somewhere other than on-line.
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