http://revision99.com Harshing your mellow since 2004. Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:59:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en With the media frenzy surrounding the death of Steve Jobs, I have been contemplating life and death. They are playing clips in heavy rotation on TV and radio from his commencement speech at Stanford a few years ago, after he'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and had ... http://revision99.com/2011/10/09/love-and-dice/ The Postal Service is one of the finest institutions we have. Personally, I think forty-four cents to mail a letter to anyplace in the country is the bargain of the century. And they will take that letter to any address, no matter how far out in the sticks it happens to ... http://revision99.com/2011/09/28/neither-snow-nor-sleet/ Jones' Law Number 2: The superrich get their wealth in one of two ways. They steal it, or they inherit it from someone who stole it. You can argue with the semantics, and you might even be able to point out an exception or two, but basically if you want to ... http://revision99.com/2011/08/17/spoils/ Memorial Day again. Yesterday I saw a piece on TV about staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, the first U.S. soldier since Vietnam to get the Medal of Honor while he was still alive. You usually get that one when you're dead. Sergeant Giunta did some insane heroic stuff in Afghanistan, rescued a ... http://revision99.com/2011/05/30/endless-war-endless-con/ My father was born on this day in 1913. If he had lived, he would be 98 today. But he died a long time ago, exactly 19 years after I was was born. He was rip snorting drunk a good portion of those 19 years, and just plain not around for ... http://revision99.com/2011/05/04/a-reminiscence/ Might as well add my two cents to this issue: What's going on in Wisconsin right now -- the Republican governor and Republican majority in the state legislature attempting to cripple public employee unions -- is not a political matter. It's an economic matter. It's another battle in the war on ... http://revision99.com/2011/02/22/its-the-money/ Today would have been my mother's 100th birthday. When Ronald Reagan ran for governor of California, I thought it was a joke. When he won, I thought it was just Californians being their kooky California selves. When I found out my mother had voted for him, I was both horrified and ... http://revision99.com/2011/02/07/centennial/ What's the point of keeping a blog ("web log," for you youngsters) if you don't go back and look at it occasionally? On the last day of 2005, after about 14 months of writing revision99, this is -- in part -- what was on my mind: A lot of bloggers seem to ... http://revision99.com/2011/01/27/encore-post-new-years-eve-2005/ It's kind of repulsive to watch all the maneuvering. Since the gun attack this past weekend in Tucson, politicians and talking heads of all persuasions have been trying to show how far above the fray they are, dancing near the line of decency and occasionally sticking a toe over it, pulling ... http://revision99.com/2011/01/12/mere-anarchy-is-loosed-upon-the-world/ In keeping with my holiday tradition of trying to perform music that is beyond my abilities, I have made another Christmas recording for you, the Precious Few. This is my fourth such presentation here on the blog, so I figure at this rate in about eight more years I'll have a ... http://revision99.com/2010/12/21/its-up-to-your-knees-out-there/