You may have seen this in the news, but the latest White House debacle is recent “renovation”, shall we say “clean up” of the Reflecting Pool on the Mall. If you’re not unfamiliar with this particular national treasure, the Reflecting pool, created over a hundred years ago, is long, shallow pool of water that runs from just beneath the Lincoln Memorial up to the World War II Memorial. The intent of this particular monument is to provide a calm, reflective water feature that provides a peaceful moment in a city not particularly known for that. Depending on the time of viewing, it can be bluish to greenish, “reflecting” primarily the rapidly growing clumps of algae, along with heavy doses of duck and goose poo that render it a masterpiece of foul smells and pollution.
Continue reading “Algae-Gate: Another Conspiracy”Tag: writing
A Fork in the Road
I was reminded recently, in a graduation speech, of Yogi Berra’s famous advice. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It’s one of those, “oh, wait” pronouncements. You stop to think about it, and the funnier it gets. But yes, life is all about forks in the road, about making decisions, and about making significant choices.
Continue reading “A Fork in the Road”Mother’s Day – Honoring, Loss, and Memories
This is a holiday for honoring mothers around the world. It will be a day of celebration, a day filled with happy memories for those of us whose mothers have passed on but filled, for some, a day with just a hint of loneliness. Our daughter is in Atlanta, and as she’s coming home in couple of weeks for her godson’s graduation from high school, so making the trip now didn’t make sense. But we’ll be communicating by phone throughout the day. Some families aren’t quite that lucky. It is also a painful one in our family. My wife’s sister passed in January, so this is our nephew’s first without . . . . It will be a day of coping. Celebrating with his wife and children but also a feeling a mix of emotions.
Continue reading “Mother’s Day – Honoring, Loss, and Memories”Becoming Executive Producer
My apologies for the production delays you’ve experienced. I’ve been promoted from Head Writer of “I’m thinking . . . .No” to Executive Producer, and moving into the corner office. When these blogs had just a handful of readers, I could maintain a more modest title, but now that I’m pulling in, well, tens of tens of readers, and presumably the influence that I can inflict generate has been expanding rapidly, so it’s time to move up on the title hierarchy.
Are We Becoming Self-Centered?
Everywhere we turn these days, it seems to me that we’re hearing about taking care of ourselves first, making time for ourselves, or doing something on “my schedule”. Historians may well look back on this period, calling it the “era of the selfie”. We can date the period of extreme self-centeredness with the advent of taking self-portraits instantly, when the slogan “America First” won presidential elections and took hold as a governing principle. Where our own interests become our consuming personal philosophy.
Continue reading “Are We Becoming Self-Centered?”True “Influencers”
In the comics today, Blondie’s daughter and her boyfriend talk about being “influencers”. By way of explanation, she wants to “influence” other people to “make her an influencer”. I’ve recently been curious about the growing careers of online “influencers”, particularly by young people. I’m not sure really what they do, except to post their views, their tastes, and their perspectives on a social media platform and see who responds. And apparently, millions do. A few years back, during the college acceptance bribery scandal, an actress’s daughter, admitted to a California university on a sports scholarship for a sport in which she didn’t participate, the daughter, interestingly, posted that she really didn’t need the scholarship because she already had a career as an “influencer”. And at age 19 at the time, she would bring a rich variety of life experiences and insights to that. Oh, dear Lord. I should point out to that my blogs and occasional newspaper commentaries don’t qualify me to be an influencer, because I’m not. I am merely an observer, writing about things going on around me. Commenting on oast experiences that have shaped my life, but certainly not blazing a path for others to follow.
Continue reading “True “Influencers””“How to Dispose of a Dead Body”
And other questions not to ask Alexa, if you don’t want your life story to end up on the True Crime Network. As writer Dave Barry would say, “I swear I’m not making this up.” Full disclosure, I’m not. These were pulled from actual news stories.
Continue reading ““How to Dispose of a Dead Body””Thought-to-Mouth Filters
Wouldn’t it be great if there were such a device? If we could somehow have some type of fine-mesh device installed somewhere between the brain and the mouth that stops something we’re about to say that, simply put, is going to offend others? You press a button to activate it, and your thoughts are blocked from reaching your mouth and floating like mist into the airspace.
Continue reading “Thought-to-Mouth Filters”Writing a “Tell-All”
There it is again – a cover on a popular magazine proclaiming, that yet another celebrity is “finally free to reveal” her life story. Her struggles, setbacks, inabilities to cope with fame and wealth. And my guess is that lots and lots of people like to read about those adversities. Those same people watch reality television shows too, the really, really trashy ones that, for example highlight brains only working on a couple of cylinders paired with anger issues. The ones where people’s homes are so full of crap they can’t move. Or the best, where people fall in love with ax murderers and get married in the chapel of a maximum-security prison. The ones that, when you see the cast in a preview, you tell yourself they really should be titled, “Dear God, Please Don’t Reproduce” or “Too Stupid to Live”. But again, I’ve digressed.
Continue reading “Writing a “Tell-All””Armchair Thoughts on the Olympics
New Englanders are no doubt throwing themselves into the Olympic Games, in an effort to block out the debacle in Santa Clara. We’re watching another series of spectacular events – another season of excitement and wonder. Something that brings us together as we see athletes from all over the world hugging and congratulating each other, excitement abounds, and we might just get an answer to the age-old question, “What is the national anthem of Estonia?”
Continue reading “Armchair Thoughts on the Olympics”
I'm Thinking...No! 