Black gold

"Even with high oil prices, Saudi Arabia's annual per capita income, at $14,000, is only about half that of oil-free Israel."

Edward Luttwak (Prospect, May, 2007)

Talk is cheap

Sending data on the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable cost $10 a word -- in 1866.

Wired, February, 2007

Harper's Index

83: Annual budget of Miami's police department, expressed as a percentage of the production cost of the film Miami Vice.

Harper's Magazine (as reported in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 7, 2007)

Merry TubaChristmas

Dallas celebrated its twenty-ninth annual Tuba Christmas at noon Friday in Thanksgiving Square. And we were there!

One hundred eighty seven tubas and euphoniums participated, with hundreds and hundreds more spectators crowding the small park in downtown Dallas. The weather was glorious, with a clear blue sky, bright sun peeking around and between the skyscrapers, and temperatures just chilly enough to make the hot cocoa welcome.

John, with borrowed tuba, was in the front row with his friend Chris. John missed the last two Tuba Christmases while traveling to Northwestern University in Chicago and family Christmas celebrations in Wisconsin.

Rice Bowl

Rice Bowl. Those two words have not been used in the context of Rice University and football bowl games since 1961. John F. Kennedy was President. Vince Lombardi was winning just his first NFL championship with the Green Bay Packers that season. And the Rice Owls were preparing to play the Kansas Jayhawks in the Bluebonnet Bowl. That was the last highlight for Rice football for over four decades. That long dry spell is over.