Gavelwrench Fishfire | A Blog

1986. This year is important for two reasons. The first reason being I was born *confetti burst*!!!!! And the second being that Congress managed to pass the most comprehensive overhaul of America’s tax code in its history.

I try to explain the competing allegiances of being a journalist and being an employee of the U.S. government.

Catalonia has banned bullfighting, huzzah! But when Lee and I visited Barcelona a year ago, our tour guide gave a brief defense of the sport. I share that defense with you and then pick it apart. Plus, I make a cute Ferdinand reference.

Lee tells us why that new female Viagra pill didn’t past muster with the FDA. Hint: It had nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with biostats.

A post that is part craft tutorial, part history lesson.

Kids, when life hands you lemons, it’s time to make some cold hard cash.

A recent radio report I did on Cambodia’s problematic sand-dredging industry.

Without reading the GQ article with John Edwards’ mistress, I think it’s clear from this really fascinating video why those two make such a good couple.  I don’t even mean that in a facetious way. Just that I’ve never seen two people less self-aware and oblivious to their vapidity. She doesn’t say a word during [...]

Washpo has this article on its main page about a new study that claims abstinence programs can (too!) work.  The article, to me, is misleading, and not just because I’m a self-professed mega hater of Bush-era abstinence-only education. First of all, the study shows that 2/3 of the middle schoolers that were taught abstinence did [...]

Between Haiti and Massachusetts’ new centerfold Senator, I guess you could say we’ve definitively entered a world where anything bad that can happen, will. I have been struggling for the past week to make sense of mother earth.  Why she shakes, storms and devastates at whim. A lot of the Haiti coverage has focused on [...]