On a stretch of African savanna, very near the edge of a forest from which flows a small stream, stood a creature, a hominid only forty-four inches tall. This creature, unlike similar in many ways to its evolutionary ancestors, yet vastly different from those of its bloodline who would follow hundreds of thousands of years into the future, shared c...

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it – George Santayana Is war also human nature? Santayana also said, "Only the dead have seen the end of war." Given our times and the current state of our governing bodies, I offer, in substantiation of Santayana's prescience, two quotes, taken out of context because the context is immaterial...

Following on in my series on using your mind to fight against the Will to Not Believe, I offer a vision of an age-old conundrum, the Gordian Knot. In legend, the King of Gordium tied a knot so intricately that only the future ruler of Asia would be able to untie it. Along comes Alexander the Great (or so to be the Great anyway) and hacks the knot i...

I stand among those totally baffled by my colleagues, many learned, many experienced, progressive and conservative alike. Chicken Little lives! The sky IS falling and it's not my fault … it's theirs! There is a fog of fantasy clouding the world in which we live. Any conspiracy voiced must have a grain of truth. There is an inexplicable rejection of...

To be honest, I can't remember when Linda and I last set foot in a movie theater. The COVID-19 Pandemic caused a paradigm shift in our entertainment menu. First, theaters were shuttered. Then, the films released held little interest for us. Then came A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks. On a rainy Sunday, we trekked to our theater of choice to vie...

I love Sweet and Sour Chicken. It doesn't matter if it's in a restaurant or homemade. Linda likes it too, as long as there are plenty of sweet pickle chunks in it. The problem is that it is not necessarily nutritious in that you serve it over rice or noodles, each of which add 100 calories and 20 grams of carbohydrates for our senior citizen servin...

Last week there was another school shooting. This time the perpetrator was apprehended alive and taken into custody, while still in possession of the firearm. Fortunately, there was only one victim and the wounded individual will recover from all but the lingering trauma. While it might seem that this shooting was far less horrendous than one in wh...

Hey! Every media outlet takes time to review highlights of the passing year from their perspective. Why can't I? I will celebrate three quarters of a century in a mere five months. I suppose, in and of itself, that is an accomplishment. I have avoided, by luck or planning, addiction, accident, disease, and the wrath of God (or Linda). I look forwar...

I have read the Executive Summary of the January 6th Committee. It is publicly available in PDF form. I will not be guilty of the same crime as the media – that being interpreting information for the reader/viewer. I implore you to download it and read it. I will continue to fight my way through the entire 800 plus pages of the report. I consider i...

We must never put the President of the United States on a pedestal. They are all, first and foremost, people, people with odd habits and strange ways. They are not divinely anointed, as a king might claim to be, nor dictators. They are, at least up until the present, just men who ran for the office and won. But many of them had their own quirks and...

Two years ago, a strange virus turned the world on its head. Talk about a paradigm shift! Things that were completely unheard of then, are now the standard. People work from home, or Maui, dialing in on high-speed networks and taking meetings by Zoom. Grocery stores shop for you and put your groceries in your trunk. Meals are delivered to your door...

--Disclaimer—I've tried to use my BLOG posts to get my readers, few that they are, to think about the subjects about which I write, and then to form their own opinions. But I've tried not to take sides. Not this time. — A former president, a man whom the electorate once entrusted with the defense of our republic, has publicly announced his desire t...

Stemming from Lutheran traditions in the late 19th century, we have the Christmas tradition of the Advent Calendar. Originally made of wood the structures, small or large, had either 24 or 25 doors to count down the days of December, one at a time, until either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. In times past, small homemade candies, toys, and treats ...

I'm certain that each of us has personal feelings about the meaning of the Christmas season. It's different by culture and generation. The 'standard' American presentation of Christmas is a New England, Currier and Ives, Charles Dickens, east coast kind of thing. New Mexico, California, Hawaii, Florida, and Texas seldom have a white Christmas. They...

Heterogenous means unalike or distinct from one another. The opposite of heterogeneous is homogeneous. Let us speak of nations as an example of both. Iceland is homogeneous. It is Ivory pure – 99.44% Caucasian, blond, etc. Why is immaterial. That Iceland is homogeneous just is. The United States is anything but. We are, by history, heterogeneous. W...

Great dining events hover upon the horizon. Yet, let us dwell not upon the Christmas Feast, nor upon the Thanksgiving Groaning Board. For these culinary events are but a part of larger annual celebrations, predictable both in content and flavor profile. Rather, let us look forward to that extended period of darkness, weather chill, and nutritional ...

12:00On September 17 of this year, a terrorist squirrel sacrificed itself to bring life for 20,000 residents to a standstill. Throwing itself on the conductors of a high-tension transformer at a Dominion Energy substation, I suspect its last thoughts were 'Oooh, that tingles', but then the lights went out; the squirrel's and ours. The power outage ...

The drizzly weather as we left Sydney, Nova Scotia, foreshadowed the weather that would follow us for the next four days. Fiona was relentless in her pursuit of us. As we left Sydney, we heard that the storm track had Halifax in the bullseye. That sealed the fate of our other Nova Scotia port, Gaspe, which was also closed by Canadian authorities. T...

Earlier this week, a widowed neighbor was picked up by an ambulance and taken to a local hospital to be treated for pneumonia related to a chronic illness. Widowed after a long marriage, he contracted a bacterial disease that nearly killed him. Now, he lives alone in a 2200 sq ft two story home full of the stuff they accumulated over a long and hap...

Viking Cruises aim to educate, inform, and enrich their passengers. Each in-port day includes one or another tour opportunity. On each cruise, one port visit is included. Other opportunities are available, at a cost. Seizing one of the additional opportunities is a matter of desire. For the most part, we took advantage of the included tour. You had...