Working in the Cole mine

Well, the firestorm I expected didn't happen over on the Lex. Not so far, anyway, Some interesting discussion, though. I am relieved.

But more importantly, here is a site I read every day. It's called Informed Comment:

http://www.juancole.com/

I first heard about Juan Cole from my dear buddy Joe Grengs (now a daddy -- congrats, Joe!). Joe teaches at the same university Juan Cole teaches at. Cole offers the most honest analysis of the Iraq War that I have seen. It's only a coincidence, I think, that Joe and Suz named their child Coleman. When Joe told me that was the name they were considering, back when we met up in Windsor last June, I immediately thought: Coleman Hawkins.

When I'm in Chile in January, I'll have very little Internet access, so I'll have to give up Juan Cole for a while, and Informationclearinghouse.info, and CommonDreams.Org. I'm not sure if a newspaper will make it onto the rural ranch I'll be staying at, but if it does, my Spanish will get a serious workout. What bugs me the most in this regard, this news regard, is that I will be away during a Canadian federal election campaign. But maybe it's all for the best. I'll go away for a few weeks, and return to be pleasantly surprised that I'm now living under an NDP socialist utopia.

Unrelated: I dropped by elyse and Randall's for a visit yesterday. It's been a long time since I've been there, so I haven't seen their son, Max, in ages. I think he's only about 17 months. He looks like David Hemmings, from the Antonioni film Blow-up. I asked if he'd been to the Riverdale farm, and elyse said it was a long time ago so he might not remember. She asked him. "It was stinking hot," he said. Randall's last name is Cole.

Over and out.