Category: Everything Else

A Sampler of Some Fine Writing and Thinking

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Enjoy These Varied and Well-Done Writings

 

Such a Buffet

As much as we all curse the internet (often with good reason), one has to admit it makes available to us an astounding volume and variety of information, thought, wonder, and amusement. Sure, a lot of what is out there is an embarrassment to our species. But there also is quite a lot worthy of our time and attention.

Allow me to share with you a few I have enjoyed of late. I hope you will as well.

Plants Communicate – A Lot

We have known for some time now that the plant world is no near as inanimate as once thought.

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Odds and Ends Rattling Around of Late

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A Lot of Us are Snowed in Now – It’s a Good Time for Some Assorted Observations

Supreme Court on Vaccination Mandates

 The current Supreme Court looks increasingly less supreme with every ruling. I keep thinking it cannot get worse, but they continue to raise the ante. At least they kept the health care workers mandate in place (barely – by 1 vote).

Gutting the large employer mandate on the basis that OSHA is the wrong agency for such a mandate enforcement is ridiculous. This is what happens when you have a court anchored in rigid ideology rather than real life.

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About Birthdays

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Birthdays are Benchmarks of Life, But in Very Different Ways Over the Years

 

Ah, Birthdays

We have a couple of birthdays in our home about now, only 3 weeks apart. That got me to thinking about birthdays. Given the numbers in our case, we are thinking of converting to dog years, to minimize the fire risk with all those candles. Replacing every 7 candles with just 1 seems a prudent safety move, doesn’t it?

Of course, we could also consider the Chinese approach to counting birthdays, starting at conception. Better plan?

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The King is Dead! Long Live the King!

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This Week the Blackberry Died – A Lesson for Everyone

Remember the Blackberry?

By the time you read this, any Blackberry phones out in the world using the Blackberry operating system will have died a quiet and ignoble death. Effective January 5, Blackberry pulled the plug. They still have a few units out there using Android systems, but essentially, they are out of the smart phone business.

In the very earliest stages of enhanced electronic communications – what eventually became smart phones – the Blackberry was the top of the line by far.

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What Would You Put in a Time Capsule?

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The History of These is Fascinating

 

Why Do These Things?

They seem to have some popularity throughout the ages. One could even say they are… timeless.

Time capsules have been in the news lately. Not one, but two were found under a statue of Robert E. Lee that was recently removed in Virginia. Here in my hometown, one was unearthed a few months ago, also from a site that once hosted a statue of a civil war figure.

It is not hard to find news items and historical write ups around the world and through the ages of such capsules being implanted,

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The Good, the Bad and the Hopeful

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A Trimates Reflection on the Past Year

What happened to the optimism that permeated most of America when 2021 dawned? New energy filled our hearts and minds as we confronted a murderous pandemic and began to reinvigorate our economy. Progress was made and national spirits raised. Then a slow drip of opposition became a flood of negativity and the country split into warring camps.

Why? What lies ahead in 2022? We are a diverse group of three (a soldier, a priest, and an advocate). Each has a blog, but we are joining together here as “trimates” to reflect on the past and imagine the year to come.

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A Modest Gift

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A Little Change of Pace for the Next Blog Post

 

You Deserve a Gift for the New Year

We, you and I, have been in this conversation for some time now. Some of us for quite a long run. Hard to believe this blog has logged in 400 posts (!) since we started this thing. Happily, it has been very much a two-way conversation, although I would welcome even more of that – I find what you are thinking to be consistently interesting, thoughtful, and worthy of sharing with others.

To date,

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It’s Time for a Favorite Holiday

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No, Not That One Next Saturday. The One Today.

 

 Tis the Season – For All Kinds of Celebrations

As has been noted earlier in this space, this seems to be the time of year that people and cultures all over the world choose to celebrate some larger-than-life theme. From Thanksgiving to Christmas to Hannukah to Eid to Kwanza to Diwali, to New Year’s Day, and more.

Something like 19 major holidays are celebrated world-wide in the late NOV-early JAN time frame, and countless more withing individual societies. And that does not even count those like National Doughnut Day or Stout Day!

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Animals in Our Lives, and We in Theirs

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This is as Magic a Relationship as Can Be – If You Have One, Revel In It

Christmas Came a Bit Early in Our Home This Year

The picture you see at the opening of this posting is of Bonnie, the newest member of our family. Bonnie is an 8-year-old border collie who was in need of a new home just about the time we were looking to adopt. The universe lined up, and here we are together. Nice.

Friends who read this blog will know that we lost our beloved Lizzy the Lab a year and a half ago.

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So, I Was Thinking About a Few Things

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Some Loose Ends as the Year Draws Toward a Close

December Reflections – Not Exactly Santa’s List But Here We Go

It is that time of year wherein we are all prone to start thinking about the year that is almost over, and the one about to knock on our door. In that spirit, five things to reflect upon, in good and bad news categories, are rattling around in my head of late. Let’s take a look.

The Economy – Especially Inflation: Take a Deep Breath

It seems hard to get people at large to recognize it,

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