Day: January 21, 2008
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The Atlantic Monthly opens its archives
In my feed-reading this morning, I stopped my blitz on this short blurb in the NYTimes: “A Venerable Magazine Energizes Its Web Site” The nut graph? Readership will get another boost starting Tuesday, when TheAtlantic.com will abolish the fire wall that has allowed only subscribers to the print magazine to see most of its articles…
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Movie: Sweeney Todd
Last weekend, we joined friends for the movie version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Last year, we saw the play, which gave me an (ahem) appetite for the film. The leads aren’t wonderful singers in this musical, but the tone of the story comes through. Tim Burton as director means you…
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Switzerland
When I saw this recent headline Aruba to buy ‘Switzerland of network management’, I cringed and knew I had to share this tiny rant. Too many people in technology want to be “Switzerland.” Nothing against the Swiss or their beautiful country, but this terrible shorthand needs to expire. No one should aim for that position,…
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Book: A Small Town in Germany
Where A Looking-Glass War disappointed, A Small Town in Germany restored my interest in Le Carré. The “small town” is Bonn, the sterile capital of West Germany in those rebuilding years. Chasing down a possible defector from the British Embassy in the midst of a resurgence of German nationalism awakens the ire and interest in…
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Book: The Looking-Glass War
I knocked off John Le Carré’s The Looking-Glass War a few weeks ago. It’s tale of bumbling and bureaucracy in a relatively minor army intelligence department, trying to recapture its World War II prominence. According to Wikipedia: John le Carré has stated that this novel is his most realistic portrayal of the intelligence world as…