4 mins

Wretched Excess Revisited

Regular readers might recall that I’m not a fan of the PGA, the men’s professional golf organization. I prefer the more modest LPGA, partly because I resent the fact that women earn 5-6 times less prize money per week than the men. It’s been years since I watched a men’s golf tournament and that includes ...

8 mins

Plastics and Other Bad Stuff

You haven’t heard from me since Easter, partly because I’ve kept my head down after a few readers chided me for being mired in negativity. OK — I’m not often effervescent. But it’s hard to fake cheer when contemplating things that seem emblematic of our times. So, despairing of finding a feel-good story, here’s a ...

5 mins

Rugged Individualism vs The Common Good

You don’t need a Ph.D. in ethno-botany from Harvard and have authored a dozen deep-think books to know that problems in our country runneth over. Being a Brainiac would help, though, if you had to boil down what ails us in one cogent essay. I couldn’t possibly do it, but I think I’ve found someone ...

4 mins

Thoughts on the Grotesque

  There are many good reasons not to sit down and write when you are extremely frustrated and angry. But this is my release, so I’m ignoring all those reasons to hold back and going ahead to spill my guts here on June 2, 2020.    Last evening all the damage that Trump is doing ...

3 mins

Have We Hit Bottom?

I’m writing this on the morning after, so please be gentle with your criticism of what I have to say. After all, I am hungover . . . from watching the Democrats debate in Las Vegas. While I’m sure there are varying reactions to the ugly scene mis-labeled as a debate, my personal take-aways are ...

5 mins

Phoenix-like, The Quixotic Deacon Returns

My October Fun   About a month ago, I had back surgery at Tufts Medical Center. I’d been warned repeatedly that this was “major surgery” and that recovery would be long. But I didn’t really need to be warned because my dear sister Gracie underwent similar surgery in June and I’d watched her recovery. So ...

5 mins

The Drums of War Revisited

Author’s note 1: This will be the last blog you will receive for a while as I am going to have some mechanical imperfections of my lower spine corrected surgically on October 1st. My sister, Gracie, recently had similar surgery and I got to watch some of her recovery from a ringside seat in New Orleans. ...

7 mins

Thoughts on Warming

God of all power, Ruler of the Universe, you are worthy of glory and praise… At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.     Eucharistic Prayer C, 1979 Book of Common Prayer   The ...

6 mins

This Isn’t Who We Are…………………Or is it?

“This isn’t who we are.” This morning I heard those five words spoken by someone I respect — Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post — about the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.    I wanted to jump through the TV and slap him. Let me explain. It will take a minute, so bear ...

5 mins

Oaths

I recently heard from a long-time friend in South Carolina, Mr. Eager Beaver,  a high school civics teacher in the hamlet of Van Wyck. I mentioned to him what a mess I thought the country was in, but I must have said some things he found extreme. Mr. Beaver, shocked to the marrow by some ...

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