Ed Cottrell

  • Oops – Biggest News of the Day!

    I don’t know how I forgot this; two of my dearest friends, Bryan and Kristine Vermillion, delivered a healthy, baby boy, today. Congratulations, Bryan and Kristine!

  • New Feature: Current Reading and Listening

    I have added a fun new feature: on certain pages (the home page, Music page, EdBlog, and books section), my current and most recent reading and listening selections will appear on the left side. I have always thought this was a cool feature on other sites, because it’s (a) interesting to see what makes people…

  • Harry Potter, Parents, the Media, and the Lunatic Fringe(s)

    “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” (German: “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”) — Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor (1821) I saw a report on CNN Headline News, earlier, about the (midnight, last night) release of the latest Harry Potter novel. Forget for…

  • PC Morons

    When a Canadian police officer teaching about appropriate attitudes towards women comes under fire for suggesting that some cultures disrespect women, or a British schoolmaster loses his job for suggesting that assimilation of immigrants causes less division than encouraging multiple cultures to retain their distinctive identities in a single location, I wonder if we (Western,…

  • Do terrorists really hate freedom?

    That’s the question posed (and answered, tongue-in-cheek, Trudeau-style) in today’s Doonesbury strip. It’s actually a really good question, so I’ll offer my answer.