Remember that middle-school geography question about how many colors it takes to fill in a map of the United States so that no state borders another of the same color?
My question is, how many colors does it take to fill in the map so that each state borders only others of the same color?
One would [...]

I love when headlines aren’t quite sure of themselves:
via Newsdesigner

Today’s the big day. The presidential election. It warms my heart to think of the millions of other people writing about it at this very moment. People from all across the country; all across the globe. Maybe in the distant future we will be neighbors on the pages of a history book.
My real-life neighbors [...]

The general mood this morning seems to be that Kerry looked calm and presidential, while Bush was defensive and shifty. But I think most people, if they’re anything like me, don’t really know who won until they start reading it in the blogs and papers and hearing on the news.
Maybe it’s related to social proof; [...]

I am not, nor have I ever been, a gun owner. Nonetheless I can see why some people might feel the need to have one; renting them at the shooting range isn’t cheap. And also there are times – let us all hope we never experience them – when a gun is not necessarily a [...]

You know, I always knew the war in Chechnya would come to this – children held hostage in a school – but I didn’t think it would take so long. I mean, children have been the biggest obstacles to Chechen independence for over a decade. Their repressive tactics and gross human rights abuses don’t justify [...]

This just in from the Democratic National Convention: there are reports this morning that some of the balloons dropped last night after Senator John Kerry’s acceptance speech may have slowed his exit from the FleetCenter. It remains to be seen how this mix-up will affect the democratic candidate’s standing in the polls, but top campaign [...]

When it comes down to it, the forces of the universe are such bullies, really. Lightning is just God\’s way of reminding you he\’s still much bigger than you. Oh you were sleeping, oh, I\’m so sorry, here POW! Ha! Torched you garage!
I hear all this talk of miracles, but when was the last [...]

Writing is a peculiar thing. It\’s like urinating; most people can only do it under certain conditions. I have a friend who can\’t pee if there are other people at the urinals. It\’s not that he doesn\’t want to; he just can\’t.
Writing is like that for me. I can\’t write if there are people around, [...]

Walking down Como Avenue, the main street in my neighborhood, on the morning of July 4th, 1991, you would have heard what sounded like a hundred miniature motorcycles coming down the middle of the street.
Crackacracka cracka crack…

That was the patriotism of all the neighborhood kids, myself included, being expressed in unison. It was the patriotism [...]