Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JULY 23, 2022 – Is “breaking news” making you crazy? Try consuming only “financial journalism.” First, if we were to follow only news reported by financial media—e.g. Bloomberg, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal—soon half the population would be snoring in la-la land. The calming effect on society would be transformative. Second, the remaining half …
JULY 22, 2022 – Last night I watched the Jan 6 Committee hearing, which lived up to its billing as a “barn-burner.” Outside the cult and the Kool-Aid exist two possible reactions to the proceedings. On the negative side, given the raw evidence of Trump’s depravity—and the fealty he still commands—a person can sink into …
JULY 21, 2022 – [Biden stands behind a lectern bearing the presidential seal; a forest fire blazes in the background] “Okay folks, here’s the deal. I don’t care if you call me old or call me slow. I don’t care if you call me Biden or call me Brandon. Like my dad used to tell …
JULY 20, 2022 – I’m finding that the James Webb telescope images of the edge of the universe have radically altered my view of life here on earth. Perhaps that changed perspective is the mission of all “space” exploration. If we earthlings, including the subspecies, homo americanus, get a lot of things “right” . . …
JULY 19, 2022 – Late yesterday morning I hiked to my make-believe scale model of “Europe’s Rooftop.” (Actually, it’s (still) a local, hilly, municipal golf course.) Switzerland was abandoned, which I figured was because of extreme heat. Rather than exercise good judgment, I pretended I was an alpinist. With ski poles I “scaled” the (60-foot-high) …
JULY 18, 2022 – Over the weekend, while sitting on our dock, I watched cumulus clouds billowing upward over the lake. Earlier, when our six-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter was doing likewise and seeing dragons and unicorns, she’d asked, “How are clouds made?” I explained that when the earth warms by day, the moist, heated air near the …
JULY 17, 2022 – Here in the Northwoods, life used to be far more primitive at our family’s summer cabin. There was no phone, and our grandmother cooked up a storm on a wood-burning stove. A hand-pump outside the cabin provided water for drinking, cooking, and washing. With a bar of soap, you bathed in …
JULY 16, 2022 – Every architect I’ve met is a class act, professionally and personally. What’s to explain this? Does the profession draw a certain personality type? Do the rigors of their education weed out the riffraff? Is it because architects are artists? I must pose these questions to “my friends in architecture.” I could …
JULY 15, 2022 – If you’re like me—semi-normal—you’ve beheld in awe, the recently released images captured by the James Webb telescope. Perhaps you’ve explored the science behind those pictures, but again, if you’re like me, you haven’t—beyond a cursory narrative. Inside my personal universe the images prompt a feeling of déjà vu. Is NASA deploying …
JULY 14, 2022 – As a college freshman, I took a “gov” class. Elsewhere it was known as “political science,” but for reasons unclear to me then and now, “poli-sci” was “gov” at the Maine alma mater of such luminaries as Franklin Pierce, who, in case you forgot, became POTUS, and Melville Fuller, who was …
JULY 13, 2022 – Blogger’s note: I trust that in exchange for the denouement, the dramatic close, the fork in the experimental story, the reader will overlook my disregard for my self-imposed, per-post word limit. Enjoy. What would the alien think, I wondered, of the media hoopla over photos of light generated 13 billion years …
(Cont.) “If, in our modern obsession with consumption and its unquenchable need for energy, we’re setting the earth on fire, our American forebears were so eager to build their lives anew with plenty, they trashed forests, people (the Indians), and whole landscapes with reckless abandon and disregard for the long-haul future. In that respect, our …
JULY 11, 2022 – (Cont.) “In the time of Columbus and for many generations that followed, the vast majority of folks in Europe lived in squalor, privation, and oppression, at least by modern standards. In contrast, the New World offered all sorts of possibilities for escape from the strictures and shackles of primogeniture, a class-ridden …
JULY 10, 2022 – (Cont.) “I thought about rejiggering the pitcher of lemonade—more ice cubes and freshly-squeezed lemon juice—but the thought quickly vanished. I was on a roll and wanted to continue my monologue about American democracy.” “You see, we’re not Denmark, Finland, or New Zealand,” I said. “Who are they?” “Countries—like America—except they’re not …
JULY 9, 2022 – Blogger’s note: The duty of friendship mandates that yesterday’s tribute be supplemented by another, this time in honor of two more people who’ve celebrated “big, if numerically unspecified, birthdays.” My self-imposed, single-post word limit has been doubled to match. Tomorrow will bring back the series, “True Story: An Explanation of Life …
JULY 8, 2022 – Blogger’s note: I interrupt the series, “True Story: An Explanation of Life on Earth, as Told to an Alien,” to bring a special feature: Happy (Big) Birthday to Beth, my spouse of 39 years. Today she turns . . . If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s not to ask …
JULY 7, 2022 – (Cont.) “You earthlings seem to have a lot of issues to be worked out,” said the alien. “It gets back to the nature of our species as homo paradoxicus, I said, referring back to an observation I’d shared with the alien near the outset of our conversation. “You mean the nature …
JULY 5, 2022 – (Cont.) “Against global standards of the day, our Constitution, adopted by all 13 Colonies in 1791 C.E., was an enlightened piece of political and governmental engineering. Few other countries back then had devised such a progressive framework of self-rule. “As is the case when more than one human occupies a room, …
JULY 5, 2022 – (Cont.) The alien displayed a new maneuver. It hovered an inch above the glass tabletop, spun around, filaments flashing red and orange, then resumed its stationary position on the glass. I read this as a distress signal and decided to respond with a more reassuring perspective than what I’d conveyed thus …
JULY 4, 2022 – (Cont.) “The religious zealotry that infused the 13 British colonies and the country that later formed was the reaction to religious power structures back in Europe. You start with the grip that Catholicism had on Europe after the fall of Rome, then examine guys like Zwingli, Calvin, and Luther, and plunge …
JULY 3, 2022 – (Cont.) “English cane growers in the Caribbean,” I said, “shipped molasses back to England, where it was made into rum. Traders then transported the rum to West Africa, where they used it in nefarious ways to kidnap people, throw them into unspeakable conditions aboard ships, sail them across the ocean to …
JULY 2, 2022 – (Cont.) “The development of political structure across the 13 British colonies was accompanied by three forces that unfolded at an accelerated pace from establishment of the first successful English settlement—Jamestown in 1607 CE—and the Declaration of Independence by those 13 colonies 169 years later.” I drew another cookie from the plate …
JULY 1, 2022 – (Cont.) “In larger groups—a city, a state, a country, a public corporation or institution—you’ll not find pure democracy, but rather varying forms of representative democracy. At the national level, this is called a republic. But don’t be fooled. There’s a very weird, very cruel, very dictatorial, authoritarian country on the other …
JUNE 30, 2022 – (Cont.) “Dark ages fell over all land on earth?” asked the alien. “Well, Dark Ages is a term that’s used to describe the condition of Europe in the centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west. Much progress ceased and worse, was lost altogether—progress in the form of …
JUNE 29, 2022 – (Cont.) “Gradually, we developed more intelligible sounds until we had a full set of words, syntax, and grammar. Eventually, as early humans migrated out of Africa and populated all land masses—except Antarctica—people put different spins on words until wholly separate languages developed. Ancient Greek was among them, and that influenced the …