Opportunity stolen

When I was a kid, I was spoon-fed the Myth of America. You know the one. It tells us that America is the land of opportunity. The land of the free. The place where anyone could become anything. Where a boy could be born in poverty in a log cabin, where he was so poor […]

One of those moments

My boss is smart. She has a Ph.D. She’s done research in aquatic biology, conducted wetland restoration work, taught at the university level, and now she’s running the premier environmental organization in my region. She’s got a quick mind, strong opinions, and makes friends easily. Because she works in a field that has been traditionally […]

Another year, another post like this

I may have told you this story before. Perhaps not. Whatever the case, I’m not sure what it is about this time of year that seems to bring this sort of thing out. Last year around now, I was writing about Harvey Weinstein. The year before that, Donald Trump and locker room talk. Maybe it’s […]

Why did I bother?

I knew better. I knew better, and I did it anyway. Last week, a Facebook friend of a very conservative nature posted a graphic on Facebook. Unlike his usual postings, it wasn’t even a share, it was a graphic he’d come across, downloaded, then posted. It was about Christine Blasey Ford. If you do not […]

The Bee and the Barr

Late last night, I gave in to an itch and rubbed my eye. I knew it was a mistake, but the eye had started itching madly right around the time Last Week Tonight started. Twice during the program I dribbled a little cool water into the corner of my eye, but it did no good: […]

One of the big problems with this country, summed up in a single sentence

According to a story on CNN’s website this weekend, during a 2006 meeting with employees angered over a new rule that would force them to share tips with their supervisors, casino mogul Steve Wynn said this in response to a woman who stated the rule would cost her fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a year: […]

Thoughts on the Brexit

The Brexit frightens me. (In the unlikely event you have no idea what “Brexit” is, it’s the decision made by the United Kingdom last week to leave the European Union.) What frightens me about the Brexit is not what it does to the stock market, or global trade, the value of the dollar compared to […]

Super (Sneaky) Advertising

Crap, here I am, stuck again. Some time yesterday I had an idea for a blog post, one that was actually about writing. Nothing huge, mind you. The way I envisioned it, it would be short and sweet, a couple of paragraphs at best. I don’t know what I was doing when it came into […]

Enough Already

I feel like I’ve used this title once already for something very similar. If so, that’s sad–not that I’m repeating myself, but that I have to. On Sunday, after watching a flood of anti-Obama memes fly across my Facebook feed, I posted the following (this is verbatim, except for one spelling error, and a link […]

Insensitivity

Years ago, when I lived here… …we received permission to throw a party. We sat down to plan and arrived at the only weekend date between Thanksgiving and Christmas that was available. That day turned out to be December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, which commemorates those who died in the Japanese attack in 1941. The […]