Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
FEBRUARY 24, 2021 – My wife and I have been watching The Crown on Netflix. I’m surprised. I’ve never been interested in British Royalty—they’re British and they’re royalty. Besides, I’ve always thought the current members were off kilter; not up to the job. Now I’m learning that apparently the Queen lacks a normal range of …
FEBRUARY 23 2021 – Recently, I watched on Netflix the four-episode, historical drama, Tokyo Trial (2016). It’s the Pacific (war) Theater counterpart to Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and mini-series Nuremberg (2000). A Japanese-Canadian co-production, Tokyo Trial was co-directed by a Dutchman and an American and filmed mostly in . . . Lithuania. Nominated for Best …
FEBRUARY 22, 2021 – Most likely no American outside our family knows that today is the birthday of our Swedish cousin, Mats-Åke Svensson. Sadly, I’ll bet that all too few Americans know it’s George Washington’s birthday today as well. Back when America was great, every school kid knew February 22 as Washington’s birthday. Then in …
FEBRUARY 21, 2021 – Yesterday I spent two-and-a-half hours transacting business at a car dealership. During long waits, I had no choice but to observe and ponder the goings-on around me—I can’t stand wasting time just “waiting,” which is why I take writing and reading material wherever I go, but yesterday, I’d forgotten. (Beyond a …
FEBRUARY 20, 2021 – Years ago I ate occasionally at the Texas Steak House—a restaurant chain where on a budget you could pretend you were in the money by eating . . . steak. The slab of beef came with extra-large fries and a piece of “Texas toast,” about two inches thick and soaked in …
FEBRUARY 19, 2021 – Every day of the ski season, I observe the same routine before heading out the door, especially when it’s radically cold. It goes like this: Turn on living room TV. Run upstairs to bedroom, remove “street clothes” and put on windblock tights, grab four layers for upper body, and photo I.D. …
FEBRUARY 18, 2021 – Last Monday I wiped out on skis. The issue was “boilerplate,” as my uncle used to call a patch of glare ice on a ski slope. Plus, I was on x-c skis—without sharp, metal, defensive edges. It was my first fall of the season—63 days, so far. As my left hip …
FEBRUARY 17, 2021 – Last December I watched a Russian TV series entitled Zhukov, the famous Red Army general who led Soviet forces to victory in WW II. Everything about the (Star Media) production—except the subtitling—was superb. (With a little imagination an Anglophone can interpret the fractured English.) Casting, acting, direction, cinematography, soundtrack—including whole-cloth musical …
FEBRUARY 16, 2021 – I have a dream that one day, every white person I’ve heard decry urban violence attributed to “Black Lives Matter” will read Taylor Branch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Parting the Waters – America in the King Years 1954-63. Yesterday I read the 63-page chapter, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott,” a detailed account of the …
FEBRUARY 15, 2021 – During last week’s impeachment trial, the defense presented a montage of prominent Democrats saying “fight” in various public settings. The point was to show that Trump was being singled out unfairly. The argument fell flat, given that none of the Democrat speeches could be linked to a riot right down the …
FEBRUARY 14, 2021 – During a break in the impeachment trial, I received a call from Jeff Klenk, a close college friend of mine. We’d both been observing the proceedings closely and talked earnestly about them. As a government major during our undergraduate days, and ever since, as a serious student of political science, Jeff …
FEBRUARY 13, 2021 – After watching three days of the impeachment trial, I needed to reduce the process to a its procedural and substantive essence. Impeachment is a purely political process, not a legal one. The right to impeach resides exclusively with the House, and the Senate alone holds the right to “try” and “convict” …
FEBRUARY 12, 2021 – Yesterday afternoon I took a personal biz call I’ll call “Mark.” It started off cordially with his, “How ya doin’?” This simple question was a match aflame. The fuse: my response, “I’ve been watching the impeachment trial.” Match to fuse: my question, “Have you watched any of it?” When Mark said, …
FEBRUARY 11, 2021 – If on Tuesday House impeachment managers laid down the law, yesterday they presented an open-and-shut evidentiary case. As top-gun trial lawyers, managers connected the dots to prove irrefutably the direct link between Trump’s mouth and the mob attack on the capitol. As the evidence unfolded, I realized how close democracy’s death …
FEBRUARY 10, 2021 – I’ll not forget yesterday’s opening of Trump’s second impeachment trial. Managers Jamie Raskin (MD), Joe Neguse (CO), and David Cicilline (RI) exhibited what’s best about our representative democracy. These genuine, well-grounded, well-educated spokesmen for accountability gave us all—irrespective of political persuasion—hope that perhaps the nation can save itself. As to the …
FEBRUARY 9, 2021 – Yesterday I had a long phone conversation with a West Coast lawyer-friend with whom I’d long been out of touch. We caught up on personal news, talked about land conservation—the subject over which we’d met years ago—and inevitably, politics. He shared my relief that normalcy, decency, and rationality have returned to …
FEBRUARY 8, 2021 – I’ve been living in a cave. Forever I’d heard of the landmark film, The Birth of a Nation and its racist reputation, but until last week, I’d never watched it. Worse, I didn’t know what it was about! I’d assumed it was about the founding of America; despite an exhaustive search, …
FEBRUARY 7, 2021 – It happened once when I was in college—so much snow fell, my skiing buddies and I couldn’t get to the ski area where we’d planned to play hooky. This was doubly ironic given that our school mascot was a polar bear. Yesterday, I faced another winter irony—air too cold for skiing. …
FEBRUARY 6, 2021 – The Contest by Michael Schumacher (see blog posts, 1/17 and 1/22) tells about Bobby Kennedy’s encounter with two young volunteers for his opponent, Gene McCarthy. The run-in was at the airport in Indianapolis early in the morning after the state’s Democratic primary. Kennedy offered to buy breakfast in exchange for conversation. …
FEBRUARY 5, 2021 – During my banking years, the “Best Practices” corporate fad worked its way into on-site drinking water. Senior management imposed quotas on lower management, and soon everyone was obsessed with generating “best practice” ideas just to mollify the Quota Police. The fad topped the agenda of my boss’s weekly direct reports meetings. …
FEBRUARY 4, 2021 – If for no other reason, this blog serves as a mental exercise—for the writer, as well as the reader. Each day I must think of a topic, assemble thoughts about it, organize those them into sentences, then pare them down to 500 words. You the reader must then exercise your mind …
FEBRUARY 3, 2021 – Today a truck with an onboard machine will appear in our driveway to shred decades’ worth of paper. In the pile is every sheet containing an SSN or bank/investment account number. A few weeks ago, I’d experimented with a primitive alternative. It didn’t go well. In the first place, fire is …
FEBRUARY 2, 2021 – When I saw images of the goons invading the Capitol on January 6, I couldn’t imagine having anything in common with them. Ditto the man on whose account and upon whose instigation they’d staged their rage. (I don’t even golf.) My disdain for them is cut and dried. Hold them fully …
FEBRUARY 1, 2021 – On Saturday I enjoyed an overdue telephone conversation with my good friend Derek, a 35-year old graphic designer from L.A. By the close of our talk, enrichment outweighed regret for not having talked since May. I met Derek two years ago at our co-working space in downtown Minneapolis. He worked for …
JANUARY 31, 2021 – Grandpa Nilsson would’ve turned 130 today. He died long ago, but his influences thrive. The greatest was musical, with hardscrabble origins. Grandpa’s mother died when he was 18 months old, a month following his infant sister’s death. Grandpa’s immigrant father, Johan, carried on, working 16-hour days as a Minneapolis streetcar conductor …