Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JANUARY 21, 2025 – Now that yesterday’s nightmare is over, I can move on with my usual routines. Except . . . It turns out that I was merely dreaming that the nightmare was over. News of Trump’s first-day fiats hit like golf ball-sized hailstones. A blanket pardon of the J6 hooligans? We knew it …
JANUARY 20, 2025 – Unlike my spouse, who this morning was in an adjoining room from me, her eyes, ears and mind riveted to the HGTV channel, I was online watching a live stream of the inauguration. When I resurfaced from immersion in two hours of shock and awe, my wife refused to hear a …
JANUARY 19, 2025 – As the world prepares for the improbable second inauguration of a flam-flam artist[1] gone so apparently legit, he garnered a majority of the popular vote for president of—get this—the United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave, domain of the eagle, and once a beacon for “[the] …
JANUARY 18, 2025 – Recently, I watched a Netflix documentary about the mind-boggling effort to build, launch and deploy James Webb. Of course, I’m not referring to the second NASA administrator by that name but the largest telescope ever built (by earthlings) and named in honor of him. The documentary reminded me of what I’ve …
JANUARY 17, 2025 – This morning I broke with routine, laying aside my History of the World Map by Map (See 1/10/25 post). For alternative entertainment, I flipped on the TV to Morning Joe to catch the latest cable opinions targeting an audience that already subscribes to those opinions. Instead of Joe Scarborough’s usual rants, …
JANUARY 16, 2025 – We who’ve been branded as “extremist, radical, leftist Democrats” (there being no other kind of Democrats, apparently), are accustomed to drawing parallels between Germany in the 1930s and America in the 2020s. These apt comparisons are supported and amplified by a broad cast of historians and political scientists who are intimately …
JANUARY 15, 2025 – I’m happy enough with my little stash of acorns—the exact location of which I know, unlike actual squirrels, who are notorious for amnesia—not to get too worked up about all the ways and means that the mega-wealthy in our society amass, stash and leverage their grand hoards of acorns. Academically speaking, …
JANUARY 14, 2025 – Last Sunday my wife and I took our nine-year-old granddaughter to a play at the renowned Children’s Theater Company (CTC) adjacent to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. While we wandered around the lobby waiting for the theater doors to open, I noticed the “Land Acknowledgment” posted off to the side. It …
JANUARY 13, 2025 – Against the backdrop of the latest news stories, not to mention the many chronic conditions that plague our species, I feel a bit ridiculous writing about something as ordinary and unimportant as pockets; not air pockets or pockets of wealth or poverty or resistance but your basic pocket-pockets, as associated with …
JANUARY 12, 2025 – After blowin’ smoke, as I’m doing most of the time, today I broke from the mold and blew some snow. Overnight in these parts we received our third measurable snowfall of another wimpy winter. “Measurable” is a relative term; maybe an inch and a half, if you use you an elastic …
JANUARY 11, 2025 – The images of Armageddon coming out of southern California form a veritable horror film. For the time being, the apocalyptic movie diverts us from whatever else in the world would command our attention. Amidst the regular reports of the role of climate change in the disaster and finger-pointing at various levels …
JANUARY 10, 2025 – Lately, each morning while I consume my porridge,[1] I pore over a coffee-table-size book bearing the expansive title, History of the World Map by Map. It’s as much an historical atlas as it is a sweeping narrative of epochs and empires, movements and migrations that have shaped the world of homo …
JANUARY 9, 2025 – I hadn’t intended to tune into Jimmy Carter’s funeral this morning—televised from end-to-end—at the National Cathedral. After all, I had important things to do (skiing) and important places to go (up and down “St. Moritz” in “Little Switzerland,” the regional park a mile from our house) . . . once I’d …
JANUARY 8, 2025 – (Cont.) Under the mistaken assumption that life was good, I attempted to reconnect the main part of the Dyson with its long wand and floor brush roller. This action, however, ended nirvana abruptly: When I snapped the wand into its docking station on the combination handle/motor/filter/canister, the bottom of the canister …
JANUARY 7, 2025 – (Cont.) This unnerving development led me back to Google, this time with the critical search term, “video.” The top hit was a link to Tik Tok. I’d heard of Tik Tok, of course, but I’d never ventured forth. As a purist afflicted with a bad case of genetically-sourced OCD aversion to …
JANUARY 6, 2025 – (Cont.) Recently, my wife—whose portfolio includes Ministry of Household Procurements— purchased a new, cordless vacuum cleaner. It’s not a mere Dust Devil acquired at the bargain price of $39.99, down from $199.99, in response to a late-night television ad. No siree. It’s a high-end Dyson, a pricey machine recommended by our …
JANUARY 5, 2025 – I can’t speak for you in your world, but in mine I go around thinking I’m . . . adequately smart. For example, I know that the gas pedal is to the right of the brake pedal—even in Britain, India and other former members of the British Commonwealth, though I had …
JANUARY 4, 2025 – (Cont.) Trotsky and his family arrived in the Bronx just as real estate development—mostly in the form of eminently affordable apartment buildings—was taking off. Thanks to extensions of cheap and easy public transportation from Manhattan, many residents of the crowded tenements of the Lower East Side who were employed in the …
JANUARY 3, 2025 – This morning I sent a New Year’s greeting to a close Czech friend of ours and life-long resident of Prague. He’s a heart surgeon by profession, but he could achieve worldwide fame if he converted his principal avocation, photography, into his primary vocation. In my applause responding to his latest round …
JANUARY 2, 2025 – To stay out of trouble . . . or to get myself into trouble, I’m not sure which . . . I mentor a couple of freshmen writing students at Southwest High School, ranked second among 36 public high schools in Minneapolis. I’m one of a group of volunteer mentors who …
JANUARY 1, 2025 – Quite apart from the opening weather forecast for this January (an inexorable descent into the deep freeze), a very positive aspect of turning the calendar from one year to the next is that yet again, a person gets to lay down a set of resolutions. This exercise is the most fundamental …
DECEMBER 31, 2024 – In so many ways, personally and publicly, this year—2024—has been the year of the Yowzers, though every year has its fair share of Yowzers. On the personal front, the biggest Yowzer was our oldest son’s descent into the heart of darkness—and out again—in the heart health department. Nothing brings more intense …
DECEMBER 30, 2024 – President Jimmy Carter was such a nice guy, people said so long before he died at the ripe young age of 100. As people reflect on his exemplary life, I have a few memories of my own about him. The first was the mock Democratic Presidential Nominating Convention held at my …
DECEMBER 29, 2024 – Periodically I engage in a road rant over one traffic infraction or another. Not that my own driving habits are always beyond reproach[1]—except for two, which are the two that will be the subject of this rant. Note: this isn’t the first time I’ve published road rants on this blog site. …
DECEMBER 28, 2024 – Late yesterday evening I stumbled across an extraordinary film, which I highly recommend to my readers. First are four things to know about it: FIRST: It’s among the sub-genre of World War II movies that doesn’t depict weapons of war (e.g. The Edge of War; The Wannsee Conference (see 12/26/22 post); …