Category: Everything Else

The “What Makes You Feel Good” Parade – Part II

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More of the Good Stuff – A Bit Deeper

Now, Where Were We?

We started this conversation back in March with a short list of things that make one feel good. The plan is to divide that list into three levels – the easy everyday stuff, which was titled The Light Stuff. You may recall that my Light Stuff list included an eclectic but not unusual mix. It included:

  • A perfect baguette
  • A walk in the woods
  • Time in a hardware store
  • A really good cheese platter
  • Being up early enough to wait for the sun
  • Serious red wine
  • Being in a baseball park before the game

Many of you wrote to concur with parts of that list,

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Money, Politics, Electronics, and the Courts

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What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

What’s Up?

Today we take a short look at four subjects very much in the headlines these days. Some connect to each other in obvious ways, others are more stand-alone. All have our attention of late.

Money

This one is actually a good mix of financial matters and politics – the national debt. This is being written about five days before you read it, as I will be on travel for several days, so it is possible the logjam on the debt will break before you read this. I would be delighted if this segment of today’s blog was out of date and the problem resolved.

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Assorted Odds and Ends

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Nature’s Metaphor

We had a remarkably mild winter in my area of the Smoky Mountains. We had one cold snap, around Christmas and New Year’s Day. It was a short but ferocious cold snap. A lot of trees, shrubs, and small critters did not make it. It led me to a hard late winter. In short order, an early spring seemed to arrive. But too late for those who could not survive the earlier snap. In a sense, that is a metaphor for life more broadly. Expect the unexpected and be prepared to deal with challenges that seemed unimaginable just days earlier.

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Three Conspiracies, Three Observations

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Six Unrelated Thoughts to Share

First, the Conspiracies

We live in an era of unbridled conspiracy theories. Fanned by alienation, fed and spread by social media, they are like barnacles on the ship of society. They make it ever harder to unite as a people or to find common ground, even in finding truth.

But hey, it seems everyone has one and they have fun with them, so today – my turn. Here are three conspiracy theories that occur to me as entirely logical and at least somewhat likely. See what you think. I know,

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Joining the “What Makes You Feel Good” Parade

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A Short Break from Politics, Social Irritants, and Bad News

Who Said That?

I have recently read two blogs, one a national blog, one done by a respected friend; both hit on similar themes. They asked what made them feel good. The former was on more general topics, the later (in a two part series) talked about things invented in our state of North Carolina.

The more general discussion of this fun area of focus was written by Steven Beschloss, someone well recognized as an historian, but someone who is also an astute observer of life right now.

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March 28, 2023

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An Assortment of News and Views of the Day

The Passing of a Founding Father

Gordon Moore, as in Moore’s Law, has died at the age of 94. Moore posited the theory, way back in the 1960’s that computer circuits would double the number of transistors in such a unit every 18 months. Many thought that was absurd and would run out of possibilities shortly.

Moore was, of course, more than right. When he wrote his idea, the best circuit around had 50 transistors. Today they have billions. And we are not done yet.

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Watch for Big Stuff Coming Soon

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Be on the Lookout for Major Outcomes

What’s Up?

As always, a lot is on the horizon, much of it important. What follows is not the definitive list by any means, but the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I think about the following issues and potential outcomes. I would be major outcomes on the following items in the next 4-6 months, for better or worse.

International

Ukraine: The war is, unfortunately, not likely to end in this short time frame, but my sensing is that the expected Russian Spring offensive is not going to amount to much.

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January 21,2023

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Presidents, Trains, Insurrection,  and Talking to the Animals

President Carter

As this is being written, it has been announced that President Jimmy Carter is going home for hospice care. It appears we will lose him in the near term. Always sad to note a death, even for a long life of contributing and living values, but at 98 all indications are that he has decided it is time leave this realm.

Carter is a most interesting person. I voted for him, and glad that I did, but his administration had a good dose of errors,

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Say You are Not Interested in Sports?

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Same for Me, Pretty Much. But Here are a Couple of Stories for Us All

The Fall of Sports

There was a time when I was pretty interested in sports. That is true for a lot of people, especially guys. But the last couple of decades have left me cold. It seems that professional sports consist mostly of millionaires (players) arguing constantly with billionaires (owners) and neither group cares much about the fans or the communities that host teams.

It’s all about money, power, and fame. Far too many players reject their roles (and obligations) as role models.

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February 7, 2023

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Politics, Drones, and Sports – Competition Abounds

The New Democratic Primary Calendar and the Old Republican One

The Democrats made the expected change and rearranged their primary calendar in a big way. Some thoughts about all that:

  • It is way past time to make such a change. Setting the pace with Iowa and New Hampshire has made no sense for a very long time. I personally like the Iowa caucus model, and New Hampshire’s tradition of just about everyone personally meeting the candidates has appeal. But neither state is representative of the country at large,

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