February 10th, 2012
David Brooks, whose main gig is writing for the N.Y. Times, is my favorite conservative columnist. Used to be William Buckley, who used words as weapons and made all the rest of us feel like we’d brought a knife to a nuclear bomb fight. I like Brooks because he’s smart, reasonable, open minded and non combative. He’s a fine writer; on the other hand, he’s usually wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
February 5th, 2012
If I could google Facebook
And you tubed out on youtube
Yahoo! I’d twitter, tweet or twirp
Lose weight for free, make money cheap
Free the prisoner, free speech, free porn, free kittens
Obama trumps Romney but not free videos
Download sex from Iran
Deficits from Israel
A torrent of bits from Gingrich
God, the Bible and conservatives
Fill the shadows of the Internet
Like a super bowl. Keywords searched
And optimized for engines
Flow together like some
Bizarre sort of poetry.
February 3rd, 2012
Economic growth requires several things. Three of the most important are capital, demand for goods and services, and consumer optimism. Four years ago, each one was in short supply. Today they’re not. That’s why I’m a whole lot more optimistic than most people right now.
Read the rest of this entry »
January 31st, 2012
This street has forgotten me
Invisible, I haunt it
January wind displaces leaves
And memories
But my thin hair does not move
My skin feels no chill
A strange window protects
Us from each other
This street and I
A windshield of words
The church of sadness and magic
Looms like a thunder cloud
Haunted– but not by me.
Kenn Amdahl
January 28th, 2012
While the GOP struggles to choose between the ultimate Wall Street insider and the ultimate Washington insider, it was nice to hear Obama speak like a regular American. Obama reminds us who we really are: Americans work hard, work smart, work together, and get things done. I hope the country heard what I heard, which was, “Hey, we’ve been angry and frightened for ten years and that’s not our national character. We’re tired of feeling angry all the time. We’re ready to feel proud again. Let’s get to work.”
I sent that paragraph to the Denver Post right after the speech, and they printed it. I guess now I can consider myself a “published author.” Read the rest of this entry »
January 23rd, 2012
How will Ebook readers change the way we think about books? And how will we older writers (who are not household names) cope with new strategies for selling our words in this new world? Those two questions occupy a huge percentage of conversation among writers these days. Read the rest of this entry »
January 17th, 2012
I signed up for a Kindle promotion just to see how that might work. This Saturday, Jan 21, my funny little book Jumper and the Bones will be absolutely FREE as a Kindle download on Amazon. If you know anyone who might like it, let them know. Free only on that one day. Info on the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Jumper-and-the-Bones
January 15th, 2012
Yesterday I attended a little get together for science writers in Boulder. I may not have paid close enough attention to the instructions, however. I remembered it was at one o’clock at a restaurant called the “brewing something.” Luckily, the address was memorable: 2525 Arapahoe. I googled it, the arrow pointed a block or so east of famous McGuckin’s Hardware which I have frequented for decades. That made sense: McGuckin’s is on Folsom, which is the same as 24th Street. A block or so east of McGuckin’s there must be a new brew pub. At 12:30 I left Broomfield and aimed for Boulder, leaving myself plenty of time to drop off my Timex for a battery replacement on the way. Read the rest of this entry »
January 11th, 2012
By now you know that I enjoy politics. If you’ve served on a board of directors with me, you know that I’m a businessman who can’t tolerate programs that are wasteful or people who are stupid with money. You probably assume I’m a right wing conservative. If you know me in other situations, you’ve probably figured out that, when it comes to social issues, I’m basically a cocker spaniel puppy with an uncontrollably wagging tail and a heart-shaped bell on my collar. Read the rest of this entry »
January 4th, 2012
A review of “The Iodine Trail: Exploring Iodine Deficiency and its Prevention around the World” by John B. Stanbury. Review by Kenn Amdahl
John Stanbury is the Indiana Jones of iodine researchers; his life would make a great movie. Over decades, he traveled to dozens of countries, meeting stars and dictators and local tribesmen while documenting and studying the effects of iodine deficiency in local populations. This book is only partly about the science. It feels more like his journal, his letters, his notes. If you read it with the mind set that you have opened a box of notes that Indiana Jones’ transcribed while on adventure and can use those to write the blockbuster screenplay, you’ll love it. If you’re hoping for an action packed adventure story itself, or a scientific abstract about iodine deficiency, you’ll be disappointed. It’s sort of in between. Read the rest of this entry »
