Reading can be a challenge to your attention span. Then again, it’s a way to get one back — if you ever had one. Mary and I have another day of isolation before we can venture out into the real world. We both tested positive for Covid earlier this week while on a family vacation at a beautiful home on the shore of Lake Champlain just a handful of miles below the Canadian border. It was a [...] READ MORE
Roger Ailes transformed FOX News into a voice of Republican conservatism. The whole thing is insulting. In fact, it’s deranged. And we’re not playing along. This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live. They are lying, and we’re not going to help them do it. —Tucker Carlson, FOX News Commentator on why his network did not cover the opening prime time hearing of the January 6 Committee. [...] READ MORE
Sometimes the simplest demands can turn a man into a monster. Because the mask has become so polarizing, the extreme reactions aren’t really about being asked to wear one for an hour. It’s about communicating what side you’re on. — ProPublica, October 7, 2021, “We’re Losing Our Humanity and the Pandemic Is to Blame” In a well-researched October 7 article for ProPublica, Sarah Smith takes a fascinating look at how COVID-19 has turned Americans against each other, [...] READ MORE
Cavemen unite! Who needs science and history? We were almost there, moving quite smoothly toward wholesale vaccinations leading to herd immunity, and then, once again, partisan politics reared its ugly head over an issue that shouldn’t have been political at all. It should have been about saving lives and getting back to normal, having learned lessons that may avert hundreds of thousands more from dying if another pandemic sweeps over our land. Now that the masks are [...] READ MORE
Casualty list of America’s daily and weekly newspapers grows. What’s the news across the nation? According to one highly informed source, the country is becoming an “expanding news desert.” It’s hard to believe when you can access breaking news any time of day, whether via cable news channels or internet websites. Not only can you get your news, but you can choose your kind of news, customized to fit your personal needs, beliefs and desires. And, as [...] READ MORE
A little needling about chasing the jab. Let me just start by saying that my wife, Mary, and I, being in declining geezerhood, both received our first jab of the COVID Moderna vaccine last Tuesday. I had to drive about 350 miles to accomplish that feat, which is like driving from my house in the George Washington Bridge and back with more than half of it on two-lane roads. I don’t think I was ever more than [...] READ MORE
Speaking up for fellow codgers trying to track down Covid-19 vaccinations. I’ve finally figured out why everything is so screwed up getting the Covid-19 vaccinations into the arms of the most vulnerable among us to the worst effects of this crazy virus. There was apparently a Trekkie at the bottom of what has turned out to be another false promise— Operation Warp Speed. You may know that warp speed is a term from “Star Wars” and is [...] READ MORE
“I told you we shouldn’t be out here after dark!” We seem to have entered a weird time of make-believe where stuff is made up by people who I’m not going to mention, because they wish things hadn’t turned out the way they did. That’s the way it is today. If we don’t like the way things are, we just pretend they aren’t and move on believing what we want to believe. I mean who would have [...] READ MORE
Everyone seems to have an opinion, but we all can’t be right. The only sin we never forgive is a difference of opinion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson I prefer not to respond to comments about my blog on Facebook, favorable or otherwise, because I’ve made my point and others can say what they want. Maybe we’ll all learn something. Getting caught up in a debate with someone who seems to be living in an alternate universe is [...] READ MORE
It’s time to zip up my lip and wait for what the voters have already decided. My plan for this week was to write about anything but politics, particularly presidential politics. I figured by mid-Wednesday morning when I posted this, there would still be no victory proclamation. It is time to move on, whatever happens, even if it means enduring a numbing four more years of fibs, fiction and factionalism. I suppose I can endure whatever happens. [...] READ MORE
