by admin | Jul 17, 2010 |
Only just now has enough time passed that I can post this long awaited piece on the World Cup 2010. Well, it’s really not exactly about the World Cup, it’s more about soccer (football) in general. How, you might ask, do I know that enough time has passed? Easy….I no longer can remember who won. Actually I did remember that the Netherlands was in the final match, but I couldn’t remember their opponent. You, of course, remember that it was Spain who won by the typical score of one to nothing or one nil if you prefer the British articulation. And that’s part of the story. There are dramatically opposing positions on the relevance of an activity that...
by admin | Jul 12, 2010 |
Those of you who know me well know that in the last several years I have developed what might be called a morbid interest in obituaries. Get it….morbid…..obituaries. Sure you did. But I have, and I’ve come by this interest honestly not morbidly. Let me tell you why. Some time ago I was researching a piece that about military veterans of WWII. This research uncovered the fact that soon the last veteran will have died. As a result of that disconcerting bit of news, I started to look for obituaries of these veterans in the Dallas Morning News and the New York Times….the only two daily news publications that I can bear to read on a regular...
by admin | Jun 27, 2010 |
I’m always on somewhat shaky ground when I write about the natural world. Even though I’ve posted before on such disparate topics as dragonflies, pissants, skunks, monkeys, and, of course, birds, I’ve never tried to make anything coherent out of these separate natural elements. Recently, however, I’ve begun to contemplate the meaning of it all. By all, I mean how one bit relates to the other, and then another, and finally becomes a whole. Lately, S. and I have been rising early and spending time in the garden in the relative cool of the summer morning. It’s more or less mindless work. Pulling weeds, picking whatever needs picking and talking about how...
by admin | May 28, 2010 |
58, 260 is the official number of US soldiers, sailors and airmen who died or who are still listed as missing and presumed dead as a result of hostilities in Vietnam. There are an additional 303, 644 who were wounded including over 74,000 quadriplegics or multiple amputees. Surely, some of these wounded warriors have died as a result of these wounds over the last forty years, but are not counted in the “official” totals. In addition, what we don’t know, at least with certainty, is how many of the estimated 1.5 million who returned with post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) have succumbed to problems arising from this misunderstood psychological disorder. We do...
