Columnists

The Left Coast is on high alert, waiting for someone to find President Obama’s mojo. It had been missing for most of the year, but no one in the Administration thought it was a problem until the November 2^nd shellacking. Now Dems are holding their breath, praying for Barack Obama to get his act together. -more-

War and Public Health, edited by Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel. Second edition, Oxford University Press, 2008, $51.22

Back in the 60s peace activists sported a bumper sticker that read: “War is not good for children and other living creatures.” In a way, that sums up Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel’s “War and Public Health,” where 46 experts on everything from epidemiology to international law weigh in on the authors’ central premise: “War and militarism have catastrophic effects on human health and well being.” -more-

As we all know, the Republicans now control the U.S. House of Representatives and have improved their Senate numbers, which means that efforts to control global warming are now dead for at least the dying days of the 111th Congress. -more-

Some of us can never have enough field guides. It’s a kind of addiction. I’ve acquired guides to the flora and fauna of places I’ll most likely never visit, but, hey, you never know. How could I pass up Butterflies of the West Indies for just five bucks? Or Trees of New Zealand? And they’re handy for identifying things on the internet. There’s a whole Flickr pool called “ID Please!” -more-

Who said, referring to imprisonment, “

It's the boredom that kills you. You read until you're tired of that. You do crossword puzzles until you're tired of that. This is torture. This is mental torture.” Was it Phil Donahue, Sigmund Freud, Derek Humphry, Murad Kevorkian, or Ayn Rand? -more-