Achenblog - The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach on whatever strikes his fancy - June 7, 2009

The Girl in the Window

When you have a little free time -- and aren't distracted by the hustle and bustle of daily life -- check out this story from the St. Pete Times on "the girl in the window." It won a Pulitzer...

The weird thing about these kids today isn't simply that they're lost and confused and shiftless and angst-ridden and "emo" and all that. It's that they're 34 years old. That's the premise of Monica Hesse's excellent essay in today's...

Obama's Scary 3 p.m. Phone Call

You remember that Hillary Clinton ad during the campaign: The red phone ringing in the White House at 3 a.m. The world's going haywire -- who do you want answering that red phone? A novice? Some wet-behind-the-big-ears senator who's...

Encore Careers

Today a friend told me about this new concept: the encore career. This is the career you launch into after your main, money-earning, tuition-supporting, mortgage-servicing career is complete. Ideally it would involve something you really care about. Helping others...

David Carradine and 'Kung Fu'

On my to-do list today is "Decline to speculate wildly on what exactly happened to David Carradine in Thailand" -- and also may at some point harumph skeptically at the assertion (made in an online chat yesterday by a...

Recession Road Trip

June is not just a month for weddings: It's also a month for heroic road trips. School's out. The highway beckons. It's a big continent that you have to see to believe. I think I've crossed the country on...

A Nation of Engineers

Advice to graduates: Become an engineer. Design the future. Become someone who knows how to squeeze energy out of seawater or turn sunlight into electricity for pennies on the kilowatt. Or how to make an American car that people...

Achenblog: June 7, 2009 - June 13, 2009