Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JULY 21, 2019 – Lately I’ve suffered a bad bout of my own myopia. Sure, occasionally I read the “news,” or rather, I check the “media,” to see what’s happening beyond my immediate horizon. But beyond my little world, my limited observations, my narrow frame of reference, I know barely a smattering of details about …
JULY 20, 2019 – In a vibrant democratic society, just as in every parent-child relationship, a tension exists between independent thought and the need to conform. On the surface—and in the mind of many-a-teenager—these two concepts seem inherently incompatible, but they are not. In a well-adjusted society/relationship, they are complementary. I’ve written an entire screenplay …
JULY 19, 2019 – Trigger warning: I’m about to bash . . . big-time college sports. What lit my fuse was my bus ride home this evening. Typically I take the “61,” which runs straight through downtown, but construction raised havoc with the route. My alternative was a “3,” which follows a circuitous path through …
JULY 18, 2019 – My favorite lines in the classic, Lost Horizon by James Hilton, are spoken by Chang, an initiate of the lamasery in Shangri-La, to-wit: If I could put it into a very few words, dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation. We inculcate the virtue of avoiding …
JULY 17, 2019 – Last week while walking the neighborhood, I encountered a new neighbor. I stopped to chat. We soon discovered many common interests. In the course of talking, the neighbor told a “small world” story. Then I told two, sufficiently linked to count as one. They (it) went like this: For high school, …
JULY 16, 2019 – For today’s post I had several topics in mind. One was another (yawn) political diatribe against the president whose name I will not mention, because it feeds into his sole three purposes in life: 1. Publicity; 2. Publicity; and 3. Publicity. Another subject was sailing and how in a very real …
JULY 15, 2019 – Whenever I spend time up at the cabin, I think about nature and . . . climate change. I think about what scientists are saying about changes to the environment around here; that over the next two decades, loons will be forced farther north until they disappear from here altogether; how a …
JULY 14, 2019 – Here are three more “relics of the past.” THE GRINCH. A memo from the department head at my second law firm to all eight department associates, chastising us for being lazy, stupid, and otherwise deficient. The withering diatribe concluded with this: Each of you should reflect on what your career goals …
JULY 13, 2019 – As an early post disclosed, in October 1981 I took a ride on the railroad—the Trans-Siberian—both ways. During the journeys, I drank lots of tea dispensed from the samovar at the end of the carriage. The attendant poured the tea into a tea glass in a commemorative (70 years of Communism), …
JULY 12, 2019 – Recently I moved my offices from the Flour Exchange Building to the TriTech Center, two blocks closer to the center of downtown Minneapolis. What prompted the move was a big rent hike. The new space is fresh, “high-tech,” splashy, and appealing, especially to hipsters . . . like me. It even …
JULY 11, 2019 – For years I got my haircuts at “Leo’s” several blocks from my office building. Leo was short, had well-combed white hair and talked without moving his lips. If you listened carefully, you could understand him. He was a nice guy. The other barber in the shop was an old Filipino guy. …
JULY 10, 2019 – In the news again is talk of reparations to descendants of American slavery. I say, “No.” If the answer were to be “Yes,” we’d lose our way in weeds and never emerge. Hear me out. At the outset we’d face a definitional question: who qualifies? According to DNA testing as part …
JULY 9, 2019 – In the grand scheme of human affairs, we’re deep into three colossal screw-ups: (a) devastation of the environment; (b) nuclear weapons; and (c) failure to address drug-resistant killer microbes and the next pandemic. If the sheer magnitude and complexity of those problems anesthetizes your brain so you no longer worry about …
JULY 8, 2019 – From August 28 to September 13, 1981 my travels led to Poland. For a year that country had been in the news—Solidarność, the illegal workers union, had started a revolution against the Communist regime, and the world watched nervously to see how the Soviet Union would react. Would it invade and …
JULY 7, 2019 -I spend a lot of time in the woods around our cabin in northwest Wisconsin. Over the years, I’ve seen trees sprout, grow, get sick and recover, get sick and die, die young, die old. I’ve seen hearty trees, ailing one, lucky trees, unlucky ones; freakishly crooked, ugly trees; beautiful, towering, textbook …
JULY 6, 2019 – Last week I moved my office from the historic Flour Exchange Building to high-tech space down the street in downtown Minneapolis. The move was prompted by a rent hike at the old place and my realization that with the wholesale digitalization of my practice, my office—with space-hogging furniture plus cabinets filled …
JULY 5, 2019 – Intrigued by Portugal during last year’s sojourn, my wife and I decided to explore more of the country after our son’s wedding there two weeks ago. Last year, our son and his now bride did all the planning, driving and navigation; managed every detail. This year we relied solely on our …
JULY 4, 2019 – As go Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Presidents Day, so goes the Fourth of July. In other words, the fashion in which we celebrate these holidays is quite detached from the historical reality of their origins. In the case of Independence Day, where is the meaning in fireworks, local parades, fireworks, backyard barbecues, …
JULY 3, 2019 – In an instant the work of many hands turned into a magical scene. Script, setting, players—all fell into perfect place. An invisible hand directed the action into images indelibly written into our memories. We would share a bond among themselves as with no other people. Framing our memories were a late …
JULY 2, 2019 – Yesterday my wife and I returned from a 12-day sojourn in Portugal. It was an expanded version of our visit there a year ago. Last year the main objective was to meet our younger son’s future in-laws, António and Marie-Helena. This year the central purpose was the ceremony that would make …
JUNE 18, 2019 – Today my wife and I are bound for “Cortiços” (pronounced, “cor-TEE-sōsh”), a magical place unknown to us until a year ago. It is a village whose population matches its years—400. It lies amidst the olive orchards of Trás-os-Montes (“behind the mountains”) in the extreme northeast part of Portugal. What takes us …
JUNE 17, 2019 – Elizabeth Warren has become the “ideas” candidate for president. One of her ideas is forgiveness of student debt, paid for by taxing the assets of the super-rich, not the merely rich. I love the electoral simplicity of this idea: free stuff for the masses, ergo lots of political benefit; whopping price …
JUNE 16, 2019 – Beth and I are at the lake where we go to commune with nature—when we’re not pre-occupied with projects, which is much of the time. At just past 11:00 yesterday morning, Beth was installing hostas in the garden behind the cabin, while I was working on deck repairs. Suddenly, the nature …
JUNE 15, 2019 – It was June 1974. A high school friend who was well aware of my (then) political aspirations had recruited me to sell books door-to-door with a company he’d joined the previous summer. “It’ll be great experience for when you run for office,” he said, “’cause to get elected, you’re gonna have …
JUNE 14, 2019 – And I’m not talking only about Nero. I’m talking about Congress. I’m talking about all the Democratic candidates for president—because to date there are no Republicans with requisite spine to challenge the incumbent. I’m talking about the media—mainstream, social, cable, network, business. I’m talking about . . . all of us. …