When the Circus Came to Town
Yes, your wicked little cellphone or iPad or Kindle is going to cause your 757 to flip upside down, burst into flame and cartwheel out of control. Not. It’s more than a smidge difficult to comprehend how the pilots’ iPads aren’t going to cause some sort of interference with the aircraft’s navigational aids, but...
Guns, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 7
Today we consider, once again, the wholesomeness of the National Rifle Association. I’ll leave it to your own reading schedule to peruse the article, but I’ll simply add a suggestion: I propose that Middle and High schools throughout our country initiate Gun Shop classes, just like we (folks my age) had Wood Shop, Metal...
The Public Intellectual
William Deresiewicz takes a rather sharp blade to a book he recently perused. Apparently, the book suggests an alternative to a college education: Start a blog. Among the things it suggests that kids might do to “create and share value” absent a formal higher education is this: “Become a Public Intellectual.” In five easy...
Greed & Co.
Every now and then I stumble across something that gives my belly a serious twist; stories that are so difficult to believe, they seem to come from a Hollywood script. Imagine you’re the parent of a little child. Imagine that child has a life-threatening disease that is essentially untreatable but for one medicine available to...
Tobacco?
First, a bit of disclosure: I’m a lifelong non-smoker. Never even tried. I don’t express that as a matter of pride in my ability to resist or anything like it. It’s just what is. I still don’t know how or understand why I never smoked, aside from remembering I always hated the overwhelming stench....
Guns, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 6
Got logic? “The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Wayne LaPierre. While I grasp the initial attraction to LaPierre’s bad guy/good guy thing, the underlying logic runs down a twisty, dark rabbit hole. Human nature, unbound and unfettered by national boundaries, will...
In Loving Memory
Yesterday was a very sad day for us. Nimitz, the gentlest, sweetest doggie who’s ever lived, passed. The cancer that had been first diagnosed a couple of years ago had finally grown too strong for him to fight. The tears still flow, and our hearts ache from his absence. Bubby — our nickname for Nimitz...
Torture, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 3
Laws do not stand in judgment of morality. Quite the opposite is true. And laws either promote commonly accepted moral virtues, (i.e. benevolence, compassion, charity, forbearance, selflessness, love, etc.), or they abet the cleaving of those virtues from society. Our nation’s turn to torture, thanks to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza...
Thelma & Louise & the Fiscal Cliff
Remember when T&L whooshed off the cliff? Yes, it was just a movie, but consider a couple of things. They careened off that particular cliff by their own choosing. They didn’t have to. They’d made a number of rather unfortunate choices earlier that boxed them into an emotional corner, but remember, those choices (for...
Drone War
When I first heard about weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS), also known as armed drones, (such as Predators and Reapers), my gut told me this wasn’t a good thing. Not because UAVS don’t save American lives. They do. And my concern is precisely because drones save American lives. I worry about drone warfare because UAVS and unmanned...
Guns, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 5
President Obama gave a heart-wrenching speech at the vigil held for the shooting victims. One line from that speech staggers the mind: Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children, year after year after year, is somehow the price of our freedom? The question is, of course, rhetorical, but the...
Guns, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 4
This article makes a number of interesting points, and I want to share them with you. As a preface, I need to correct, or at least modify a term the author (mistakenly?) uses: High caliber. Furthermore, of the weapons that proliferate amongst the armed public, an increasing number are high caliber weapons (the weapon...
Guns, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 3
The following post shares my comments from a correspondence with a dear friend regarding the horror that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I include it here because I think it’s relevant to our Village. My initial reply: I agree with you on almost everything you’ve written, and the part with which I...
Torture, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 2
As Andrew Sullivan says, Kathryn Bigelow (Director of Zero Dark Thirty) is NOT a torture apologist. I agree with everything he says. (I’m anticipating viewing the movie, but with trepidation.) And I second Sullivan’s call for a Bush/Cheney investigation and obvious, subsequent prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and treason. War criminals did...
Guns, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 2
We can’t just say, “Everybody does it”. No! Dammit! Everybody doesn’t do it. Sure, Iraq does it. Afghanistan does it. Somalia does it. Great company, those, or they, or them. S’wonderful to be included in any kind of statistic with those countries, right? But it’s especially heartwarming to have an “Access to Military-Style Weapons”...
A Morning Read
A Morning Read. I watched a newscast interview last night. The guy being interviewed owns a small business. He makes over $250K annually. The report didn’t say how much over $250K the guy makes, but regardless, he makes a decent income from his small business. Asked if the tax increase proposed by President Obama...
Torture, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 1
Our Lack Of Choice With the release of the movie, Zero Dark Thirty, the gut-wrenching topic of torture has been re-introduced to the nation’s common discourse. In the years since George Bush and Dick Cheney unleashed the dogs of war upon the world, we, America’s citizens, have been denied the damnable but needful conversation...
Take Your Aspirin
Let me quote something from an interesting article in The New York Times: . . . when does regulating a person’s habits in the name of good health become our moral and social duty? The answer, I suggest, is a two-parter: first, when the scientific data clearly and overwhelmingly demonstrate that one behavior or another...
Prolific Indian Satirist?
I don’t get it. I read a lot of commentary, OpEds, bloggish stuff and all sorts of things. But never once have I read anything from this so-called, “prolific” Indian satirist and I don’t care WHAT Native American tribe he’s from. Look, if The Grey Lady wants to call somebody prolific, bounteous or profuse,...
Drawing The Line
I put the kibosh on an old friendship a while back. Trust me, it was no easy thing. But after slogging through all the emotion, and contemplating all the options I could find to contemplate, I had to. Let me explain. My erstwhile pal — a professed, born again, church-going Christian — is a very conservative,...
Guns, A Continuing Discussion Pt. 1
It’s time to begin a conversation. I’m going to call it: Guns — A Continuing Discussion — (Append the part numbers here) Let me preface with this: I am not an anti-gun ownership guy. Neither am I an anti-automobile ownership guy. Or an anti-helicopter ownership guy. But please, it is not unreasonable to anticipate a...
Please Don’t Let It Break
Please Don’t Let It Break. If, on some sunny, cheerful morn, the bridge I happen to be traversing, (whist silently pleading, “Please don’t let it break, please don’t let it break”), chooses that particular moment to heave a sigh of frustration, and collapse into the swirling maelstrom, I can assure you ONE of my...
Our Mr. Brooks – Part Deux
A follow on article to this morning’s article by David Brooks. This one is by Paul Krugman, who illustrates my point about the Republicans’ so-called attempts at rapprochement.
TMI
Humanity has always been hardwired to fear … But the fear used to be of wild beasts prowling, the encroaching Visigoths, plague, world war. Now, in the pampered present, all that anxiety has to find a new focus … we have come up with … our status might be falling or — the horror,...
Our Mr. Brooks
From The Republican Glasnot, by David Brooks: There are increasing signs that House Republicans are willing to unite behind Speaker John Boehner so he can cut a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff.” There has been an epidemic of open-mindedness as Republicans try to win minority votes and create a version of their party that...
Instagram – Nickelback Parody
Howdy Do! If you happen to be one of the b’zillions who shares every friggin’, non-event or insipid moment of every day via one (or more) social network? Well . . . I suppose I owe you an apology. (I suggest you hold your breath.) But for the rest of you? Enjoy.
Republicans And Damn Republicans
There’s an old saying: “There are lies, and there are damn lies”. Well, I suggest there are Republicans, (Old School), and there are damn Republicans (Model 2.0). WWII Disabled veteran and former Senator, Bob Dole, is from the Old School. Sadly, his kind are rapidly disappearing, and being replaced by the (cold and stingy) Mod...
The Men Are Getting Hungry
This morning’s quiz: What’s white, conservative, middle-aged, (or older), and has a dongle? Go ahead, I can wait while you ponder. Hum-tee-hum-tee-hum. Give up? The answer, of course, is simple. After the nation just handed the GOP a note saying, “Change your party you bunch of stupid *&#^!”, the House leadership (that would be...
Millennials And The GOP
The first note in this stream puts things in a bit of perspective. My kids were born between 1976 and 1990. Clearly, when it comes to politics and government leadership, (leadership, in this case, should probably be Bold, “in quotes” and italicized, just to make my sarcastic point), the preponderance of my kids’ experience has...
Hey, This Forest Is Full Of Trees!
Philosophy and the Poetic Imagination: … most of us rarely stop to think about how language works, or how come we succeed in getting our ideas across in words. It all seems to happen naturally. Poets, novelists, speechwriters or the merely curious sometimes confront these questions, but it is a job that often falls...
