Archive August, 2018
August 28, 2018 ~ Los Angeles Times caption read: “Pariah President.” Pariah – rejected, outcast, despised.There you have it. The opening statement, the paper’s bias. So much for journalistic integrity. The only news that is fit to print is gritty (inteGRITTY). I didn’t vote for the president. I wish he would keep good counsel and not tweet every thought that enters his brain at 1:00 AM. But the top story is: The Pariah President.
The Times reported that the “one unprecedented aspect” of Trump’s presidency is “being unwelcome at events.” One could argue quite easily that his words and actions have resulted in dismay, disbelief and even p-ss-ng contests. You could even argue that people have the right to choose whom they wish to invite to their funerals, weddings and sporting celebratory events. But our society has lost the way to taking that high road.
Trivial, infantile, petty behaviors with tweets, barbs and flag flying have plummeted our sensibilities to a new level of lowness. #BeBest
Looking Back 50 Years
August 28, 2018“You say you want a revolution, well, you know, we all want to change the world.”
Yes, the summer of 1968 we wanted to change the world, especially in Chicago where the Democratic National Convention would bring out protesters, like me, eager to see an end to an incomprehensible war and hungry to participate in the process of nominating a presidential candidate for a very important election.
Personalities like Hayden, Rubin and Hoffman were sure to be on hand. They never impressed me, tho. I thought they were radical, loose cannons and men with unattractive personalities. Unlike my teen idol, Bob Dylan, the Free Wheelin’ and mystical poet who could hypnotize me with words like: keep a clean nose, watch the plainclothes, you don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.” I was always a sucker for rhyming.
There was a call out for hippies, druggies and freaks— “Won’t you please come to Chicago just to sing”… and to celebrate the people’s “Festival of Life”—with music, dancing, and drugs; and the Mothers of Invention, Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Ga-Da-Da-Vida” and Jefferson Airplane’s “You are the Crown of Creation.”
In those days, I was a poser or wanna-be for the most part. I wanted to be a hippie. I embraced nonconformism, but I couldn’t live in their culture of chaos. I was never drawn to drugs because I liked to have control of my situations and frankly, Timothy Leary scared me straight. I was mesmerized by the music of the sixties, the nonviolence movement and lured by politics that “was planted in my veins”.
I was part of some 10,000 young people who took to Chicago’s streets. Chained to park benches, we were confronted by roughly 8,000 cops, thousands of bayonet-wielding National Guardsmen, and about 1,000 federal undercover agents.
We may have gotten the revolution we wanted, but we didn’t really change the world.
Mourning Monday
August 27, 2018Two people were killed and 11 injured after a shooting during a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida. A 24-year-old opened fire on gamers before killing himself.
Senator John McCain died of brain cancer over the weekend. McCain’s family didn’t want President Trump at his funeral. The White House drafted a statement for Trump praising McCain for his heroism and decades of public service, but it was never sent out. Presidents Bush and Obama will offer eulogies.
Pope Francis’ trip to Ireland was difficult, with the clergy sex abuse scandals swirling around the church. The pope has been called out to resign for his handling of the cases.
Playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon died over the weekend from pneumonia complications at age 91. Of his more than 30 plays, 13 were made into movies. He received 16 Tony nominations and won best play three times. He also earned four Oscar nominations, a Pulitzer Prize and the Mark Twain Prize.
It’s good, it’s bad. It’s good and now it’s bad, again. A new study says no amount of alcohol is safe for your overall health.
Perfectly Petrichor
August 27, 2018The moment the parched earth met those first drops of long-awaited rain at the cottage on West Island in Fairhaven, Massachusetts my senses came alive.
I remembered a time decades ago vacationing in a small town outside of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. A storm was headed to greet us. I could smell it in the wide-open space: wind, rock, white capes and… petrichor. A musky, yet fresh, earthy odor; the scent of rain.
As a child, there was no scientific explanation for what farmers had hoped for and what we instinctively knew. Rain.
Inquiring minds would ask repeatedly, “how do you know?” “How does this happen?” The response from the elders was always the same, “we just know.”
Roughly 50 years later research would tell us that the instant the rains moisten the ground, oil is released from plants along with a compound, geosmin. Wait for it. Petrichor.
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