Month: February 2021

The events of early January, nay the events of the preceding two months or since the November election, have sent unfortunately mixed messages about what democracy stands for.  Maybe even that it doesn’t always work.  But the military didn’t seize power.  The protesters eventually went home. They weren’t gunned down on the steps of the capitol, but several hundred have been invited back to answer for their actions. Democracy, embedded in our society, has and will continue to triumph, despite the best efforts of some, lately Republicans to show their true intentions.  Congress came back and completed its mission – to certify the election results.  The transition happened two weeks later.  But we can ask ourselves, with shaking heads, what are the optics of a sitting president stirring up a crowd followed by images of him sitting watching the events unfold on television with a smile on his face, until presumably one or two of his legal team suggested it could be problematic? Then, he issued a half-hearted response.  Really?  The rest of the world was more outraged than some Americans. This the way we do things in the world’s most potent democracy?

Continue reading “Torn from the Headlines Yet Again – the Optics of Politics”

As I was preparing our taxes and filing our taxes this week, along with Her Ladyship’s conversation with our friend, Lady Peacock about her taxes, it seems an appropriate time to go back in time long ago, to a period we thought ripe with prosperity and good will. February, 2020.  Here are excerpts from that blog, along with a couple of strategic revisions and updates.

Continue reading “Tax Time in a Pandemic”

There’s a most amusing series of commercials for an insurance company, in which a gentleman runs seminars whose purpose is to prevent young home buyers from turning into their parents.  They’re really very funny.  In one, they’re guessing at the correct pronunciation for “quinoa”, and in others, he admonishes “You got up early. Nobody cares.” and “The waiter doesn’t need to know your name”.  There’s a stage at which we all turn into our parents, sometimes not in our thirties or forties, but for better or for worse, it will happen.  Her Ladyship and I are well into that stage.  

Continue reading “Turning Into Our Parents”