Dog Tired

I’m not angry this time.  If anything I’m just exhausted.  That kind of tired that you feel after you've had an argument with a loved one and all the vitriol has just been wrung out of you and all you really want is for all of the bad feelings to go away and for everything to be at peace again.  It’s an empty dullness that makes you just want to lie down on the couch in the quiet house, exhale and look up at the ceiling.  Maybe I’m just getting numb to it all.

Glove Story

Donning a glove for a backyard toss, or watching a ball game, we are players again, forever young.~ John Thorn; baseball historian.

Its baseball season again.  Time to dig into the closet and pull out the glove.  I did that last year about this time and went through some moments of panic when I couldn’t find it, tearing the closet apart, shouting at my wife, "Cora, Where in hell is my glove?" 

"I don't know. I don't play baseball." she yelled back. 

Then I remembered that I’d loaned it to my son.  I asked him to give it back which gave me an idea for a present for his upcoming birthday. 

A Convenient Epiphany

In the capitals of our nation a person’s worth is defined by the size of his bank account, his clout or his political expediency.

There has been a mass epiphany within the ranks of the Republican Party's politicians.  For many in The Grand Old Party, the notion of gay marriage no longer poses the threat to western civilization that it did about 5 months ago.  Let me think, just what was it that happened 5 months ago?  Oh yeah, I remember, that was along about the time of the last election when the self-described Party of Lincoln got shellacked when it came to garnering votes from just about everyone who isn’t an old white guy.  And just for the record I'm an OWG myself. I just happen to be an OWG who doesn't relate at all to the GOP. 

What's Happened Here?

When did it all change?  Why did it all change?  How did it all change so much?  I grew up in the suburbs of San Mateo.  It was a middle class neighborhood in the hills above the town, on the San Francisco Bay Peninsula, about 30 minutes south of San Francisco itself.  It was the fifties and sixties; a time when we boomers lived the American Dream defined by well-manicured lawns, ranch style homes and the notion that we, the children, would live in a better America. 

A Sunday Stew

For many here in the States, the best part of Sunday is football.  Not so for me.  I’m partial to Sunday supper.  Sunday supper has its origins in Britain and Ireland where a hearty meal of roasted meat was served with a bounty of sides after the Sunday church service.  It’s remained popular to some degree in the former colonies, including The United States. 

Sequestering Morality

Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded.  Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced.  FBI agents will be furloughed.  Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. 

~  Remarks by President Obama on Sequestration, February, 19th 2013

"A culture that victimizes it's weakest members is a culture in decline."  ~  John Barry of The Southern Tier AIDS Program.

We’ve been sequestered!  Or is it sequestrated?  I don’t know; either way it comes out to the same thing.  We’ve been screwed.  By our government.  Again.  Actually I couldn’t say whether or not I’m actually part of the “we” that’s being screwed.  I’m in the comfortable middle class and I imagine I’ll come through this without really noticing much.  If I decide I want to take a flight somewhere I might have to show up at the airport a little earlier; so I lose a little sleep.

Reading America

But he is not always alone.  When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow the meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.  (From Jack London’s, The Call of the Wild.)