Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
MAY 26, 2020 – What now unfolds is Rotten Apple vs. Over-ripe Banana. Rotten Apple is crawling with worms, mushy with rot, and devoid of any “core” values. This fruit’s so bad, it’s not fit for pigs. Many people who’ve seen an apple know at a glance that this one is inedible. (That I can’t …
May 22, 2020 – I used to be a Lutheran—the moderate strain, meaning, E.L.C.A. (“Evangelical Lutheran Church in America”), which, ironically, was in contrast with the “Evangelical” persuasion that one usually associates with that term. How and why I became entrenched in mainstream, moderate Lutheranism—congregation president, chair of the worship committee, perennial Sunday school teacher, …
MAY 19, 2020 – This morning I saw the CNN headline, “America’s Covid-19 response is the most American thing ever.” The image featured a woman waving a large American flag, seated atop a parked jeep. The sub-headline read, “The country’s conflicting behavior in the face of coronavirus is a symptom of a national value that …
MAY 16, 2020 – This past week I had three political conversations: one with a strong Trump supporter, two with vehement anti-Trumpsters. The Trump supporter was convinced that Corvid-19 was hatched in a Chinese lab and aimed at bringing us down; that our best foil is a re-opened economy. One of the anti-Trumpsters, meanwhile, was …
MAY 14, 2020 – Paradoxically, one way to distract yourself from The Virus is to read all the lengthy articles on the subject by epidemiologists, statisticians, and the world’s leading conspiracy theorists. Personally, I’ve checked out of the discussions. This wasn’t the case early in The Crisis. I found myself sucked into all sorts of …
MAY 12, 2020 – Usually I’m sequestered from the nonsense that reigns supreme elsewhere on the good ship America. This morning, however, sudden zig-zags in the vessel’s course prompted me to leave the quiet of my stateroom to have a look. The air smelled sulfuric. Blindfolded passengers with bad hair, bulging eyes, and carrots jammed …
MAY 8, 2020 – On the 75th Anniversary of V-E Day, I wonder: should I think of “V-E” as “Victory in Europe” and dwell upon its lessons or . . . should I view today as “Very Easy” and live obliviously? If like Simon the Simpleton I don’t care about the portents of history and …
MAY 4, 2020 – My wife often observes how some see the glass half empty while others see it half full. The latter group, she says, are more likely to seize victory from the jaws of defeat. Generally, I’m a “glass half full” person. When the forecast is “partly cloudy,” I think, “partly sunny.” If …
MAY 2, 2020 – Perhaps you and I see the same images. Perhaps we don’t, for we live in the Disunited States of America. In any case, witness gun-toting protesters in Michigan and beach crowds in California. “What?” They say. “A killer virus is afoot? It’ll take time . . . and patience . . …
MAY 1, 2020 – In school I got “schooled” in the First Amendment. It was essential for a free, civil, and democratic society. Now I’m unsure. My uncertainty, however, is not because I’ve lost faith in the foundational precept of our democracy. I’ve always understood the First Amendment as a “mixed water” faucet, from which …
APRIL 25, 2020 – Feeling outraged that America’s led by a village idiot, I think about this day in Portugal in 1974. That’s when the military initiated the largely bloodless “Carnation Revolution”—named so because citizens stuck carnations into rifle barrels of soldiers guarding the streets. It signaled the end of Estado Novo—the “New State”—under the …
APRIL 20, 2020 – In these upside-down times, explanations abound as to which way is up and which is down; the differences among black, white, and gray; that “up” is “down,” green is red, and black is bad. Math, anti-math, math models, science, non-science, news, “fake news,” fake “fake news,” and information—baked, half-baked, misperceived, misstated, …
APRIL 16, 2020 – As the world struggles with The Virus, we’re learning that the spread of an invisible, highly contagious pathogen is as big a threat to humans as humans are to humans. But this attention-grabbing contagion is doing lots more than making people sick. It’s revealing in stark fashion many of the flaws …
APRIL 15, 2020 – Recently, all set to “do our taxes” by the traditional deadline, I realized that thanks to The Virus, the filing deadline is now July 15. Then a client called: what could he do with retail clients who can’t pay rent? (Fortunately, the client’s property isn’t mortgaged.) “Negotiate,” I said, “but condition …
APRIL 13, 2020 – We are deep into the era in which millions of Americans can’t hear Cassandra say, “I told you so.” Even when irrefutable evidence and ironclad proof fill the eyes, ears, mouth, and nostrils of a naysayer or human ostrich, the truth of her prior warnings is denied or ignored. When Bush …
APRIL 12, 2020 – When I peered out the window this morning, I was happy to see daylight, but unhappy that the sun was hiding behind a thick overcast. As a skiing fanatic, I was happy to see snow on the ground. As a rationale adult I was unhappy to see snow on the ground. …
APRIL 9, 2020 – Now more than ever, we see the importance of government . . . and business; or more precisely, the difference between good and bad. In the time of Corvid-19—without central, collective, organized effort by government and business, huge swaths of human population, if not all people within a given geographical area …
APRIL 8, 2020 – Little did any of us appreciate back in January how monumental those impeachment proceedings would be. While GoebbelsNews and Republicans drank and dispensed the Kook-Aid, Democrats experienced a collective apoplectic fit over Trump’s plain-as-his-own-words “high crime and misdemeanor.” The Blue Team saw the very essence of American democracy on the line. …
APRIL 4, 2020 – As is the case with everyone these days, I’m learning how to deal with stress created by The Crisis. Yesterday, I discovered some “deep breathing” exercises. By the time it had occurred to me to search “deep breathing” online, the sun had slipped under the horizon, and the outside temperature had …
APRIL 2, 2020 – Raise your hand if you want to live in a country where decades after Stalin’s excesses had been suffered by millions and revealed to millions more, people would demonstrate their adoration of the man by posting his portrait publicly, ringed with flowers. Or signal approval if you’d wanted to live in …
MARCH 29, 2020 – Pandemic. It’s as old as civilization. And how about civilization? We’re making it up as we go along. Viewed optimistically, it’s a record of progress. Seen pessimistically, it’s a descent into inevitable self-extinction. Evidence abounds for each perspective. I believe, however, that the more accurate depiction of the human record is …
MARCH 19, 2020 – FIRST, A TRIGGER WARNING: An anti-Trump rant! Not decades ago when I first learned about Trump, was I impressed by the man. When in my banking days I learned about his financial disasters—long before they were broadly publicized—I developed wariness about him. When he hatched his groundless “birther” hoax against Obama, …
MARCH 13, 2020 – TRIGGER WARNING: In this post, I swear twice . . . Damnit! Time to treat The Virus for what it is: the biggest threat to our way of life since . . . take your pick of national crises. This could well be our Grand Duzy. My evidence? Italy, a country …
MARCH 6, 2020 – Yesterday evening my book club met to discuss this month’s book—the Beethoven biography (see February 23 post)—along with our perennial topic: politics. Both the book discussion and the political talk were robust. Only one of us had read all 937 pages of the biography. I was second at page 825 plus …
MARCH 5, 2020 – Yesterday I had five intense political conversations—takes on the fourth-round playoffs. The first conversation was with a guy on my bus. In his early thirties, he’s secure and established. Exceptionally well informed, he’s even keeled in his demeanor and political views. Before The Great Consolidation, he’d been searching for the right …