Ah, our tax dollars hard at work:

A law that would bar fast-food restaurants from opening in South Los Angeles for at least a year sailed through the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday.

Why is this law particularly egregious? Take it away William Saletan:

We’re not talking anymore about preaching diet and exercise, disclosing calorie counts, or restricting sodas in schools. We’re talking about banning the sale of food to adults. Treating French fries like cigarettes or liquor. I didn’t think this would happen in the United States anytime soon. I was wrong. . . .

[T]elling certain kinds of restaurants that they can’t serve certain kinds of people is just plain wrong, even when you think it’s for their own good.

Whenever people—especially politicians—claim to be doing something for someone else’s own good, it’s guaranteed to be bad.

The Times offers their top fifty “wish you’d been there” moments in football.

What if you had a time machine and could set it to take you back to any point in football history? Which matches, which moments, would you choose—so you could proudly say, years later, “I was there”?

For me, No. 2, “The miracle of Istanbul, 2005,” will always be No. 1 (until, of course, Liverpool wins No. 6 or No. 19; or England wins No. 2). 

I may not agree with everything Ray Bradbury says in his interview with Steve Wasserman, but when he’s right, he’s absofuckinglutely one hundred per cent right:

We’re trying to educate people when they’re in the fifth, sixth and seventh grade—it’s too late. You cannot teach a 10-year-old child to read and write. It begins when they’re 4 and 5—when they’re mad to learn. See, the good thing about young children is they’re passionate about life. And, if you look at them, they’re eager. They run around grabbing things and you give them really good books when they’re 5 years old—they’re gonna eat it. We’ve got to teach children to eat books—to devour them—to be passionate about life by the time they’re 6 years old in the first grade they’re ready for all of life. We’re not doing it.

I was reading the Times at age five.

I don’t think my twelve-year-old nephew’s ever picked up a newspaper, let alone a book. That’s sad.

There are few greater gifts a parent can bestow on a child than the love of reading.

Reading will change a person’s life for the better.

One year ago today, The Wife and I got in our car and drove out west to our new home, Laguna Beach.

A few minutes ago California gave us our one-year present: a 5.8 5.4 earthquake.

I’ve felt a few this past year, but nothing quite like this one. Disconcerting to say the least.

From Publishers Weekly, the first review I’ve seen of Neal Stephenson’s Anathem:

Stephenson’s expansive storytelling echoes Walter Miller’s classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, the space operas of Larry Niven and the cultural meditations Douglas Hofstadter—a heady mix of antecedents that makes for long stretches of dazzling entertainment occasionally interrupted by pages of numbing colloquy.

I really need to read the Baroque Cycle before I even think of buying Anathem.

Finally.

Liverpool have signed Robbie Keane from Tottenham Hotspur on a four-year deal. The Republic of Ireland striker underwent a medical at Liverpool’s Melwood training ground on Monday and the 28-year-old was then given the all-clear to move to Anfield for a fee of £19 million, which could rise to £20.3m dependent on bonuses.

Unbelievably, this is not the only news that’s brought a huge smile to my face this morning.

“Hello, Cleveland!”

Kids today have no idea what they’re missing:

Today’s instant sensations can find themselves ill-prepared to work crowds, says Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Mike Campbell, lead guitarist in Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers band. They headlined a sold-out concert last month at Blossom Music Center.

“When we started out, we played a lot of bars and drove around all over . . . just to play,” Campbell says.

“It seems like nowadays people just want to get their computer and put their record out and be rock stars overnight. What happens is, they don’t learn those skills you need to become a performer and to present your music live.”

“Just to play.” Three words, one very powerful statement. If you’re not driven “just to play,” sell your instrument and buy a tie. The world doesn’t need any more fakes.