Recently updated blogs

FreedomlandMichael Tuviera's The Kingdom is that rarity in Filipino films, a high-concept production that in this case answers the question: what if the Spaniards never landed? What if the Philippines-- here renamed Kalayaan (Freedom)-- remained Malay in culture and tradition?An ambitious idea but not entirely original; in science fiction it's an entire subgenre, answering all kinds of what ifs: What if the Protestant Reformation never happened (Kingsley Amis' The Alteration)? …

The history of The Walt Disney Company is inextricably linked to the greater Los Angeles region, and the destruction from the devastating fires affecting thousands in our area is truly heartbreaking. We will be supporting vital organizations offering essential services on the ground, including the American Red Cross, the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, among others. Additionally, we’ve been working around the clock …

The 2025 NAMM Show - the annual trade show of The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) - is scheduled for January 21–25 in Anaheim, California.… Read More 2025 NAMM Show Coming January 21–25

ShareThe Supreme Court on Friday evening added three new cases to its docket for the 2024-25 term. The cases, which involve issues ranging from the constitutionality of appointments to an HHS task force to student loan forgiveness and mootness in tax cases, are likely to be among the final cases argued during the current term. In Becerra v. Braidwood Management, the justices agreed to take up a challenge to the …

Online searches for NHS advice on common childhood illnesses surged in 2024, according to new figures compiled by NHS England. Five of the ten most visited health conditions on the NHS website last year mostly affect children, with three of them seeing significant increases compared to 2023. Visits to the hand, foot and mouth disease […]

Our first episode of 2025 features special guest Brock Dittus. Brock is the guy who started the Sprocket Podcast and he’s just an all around wonderful human, former school bus driver, and cargo-biking dad who’s been a big part of the local bike scene. He now lives in Salem, which he gives glowing reviews to in this episode. Among the many fun things we chat about in this episode, you’ll …

I’ve noticed some erratic behavior with the Spotify for Creators app lately. Every morning, over coffee, I read through the comments on the app and reply when appropriate. However, I haven’t been able to access comments for Sleep Tight Relax.This afternoon, I decided to log in to the web-based interface to see if it was just a bug. Spotify’s podcast creator platform is known for being riddled with bugs. Unfortunately, …

Back in London this week to do, as I put in an email, the “grown-up parts of moving out”. Also to celebrate the new year. Or at least, that was the plan. You know what they say about the best laid plans? Well lots of things did not go to plan this week, but we still executed on all the important bits. Firstly, and most importantly, I neglected to review …

White Wagtails are one of the most familiar species of songbird across much of Europe and Asia, but here in North America, any time one of these Old World beauties shows up as a vagrant, it causes quite the stir in the birding community. And just before Christmas, that is exactly what happened on the coast of Central California, near the beach town of Santa Cruz.Rare White Wagtail in Santa …

Today’s newsletter begins: Raymond Carver liked to quote Isak Dinesen, who said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. “Someday,” he wrote, “I’ll put that on a three-by-five-card and tape it to the wall beside my desk.” The poet Tess Gallagher said Dinesen’s words were a “quiet banner of determination” that flew over the last decade of Carver’s life. I used to have an index …

First United Methodist Church, 2100 J St, Sacramento, CA 95816

I often wonder what it felt like for the ancient Greeks, circa 800BC, to be wandering in the ruins of the previous Mycenaean civilisation. These cities they can no longer build; staring at writing they can’t read. The Greeks had to re-discover literacy. I think perhaps they wouldn’t have known what they were looking at. I know that dinosaurs aren’t our ancestors but… it’s adjacent? We live in a world …

Mr. Lewis Sydney playing his Follyphone in September 1912 (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) The future can be presented in a lot of ways. Sometimes we imagine it in the darkest of terms, a dystopian hellscape that shocks our sense of safety, making us fearful about what’s to come. Other times we imagine the future as utopian—joyful and wondrous with all of the things we could ever want at our fingertips …

Part three of my personal favorites, with 15 landscape & seascape photos from San Diego County, Yosemite Valley, and New England. Read MoreThanks for following Alexander S. Kunz Photography via RSS & keeping independent websites alive. Buy me a coffee? Support @ $3/month. Visit My Print Store. Browse My Photo Archive.

Plans to sell the Greenwich Equestrian Centre were given the green light by a panel of councillors on Wednesday after a challenge to the decision led to a party political row. Last month Greenwich Council’s cabinet approved a proposal to sell the centre on Shooters Hill, as well as a house next to the nearby […] The post Bid to halt sale of Greenwich’s Olympic equestrian centre thrown out appeared …