What if…
What if we helped each other? What if there were no bullshit jobs? What if health care, sick leave, insurance, retirement, …, weren’t tied to your e...
Category: reflections
Garbage-In, Garbage-Out
Here’s a logic puzzle for you. If testing for COVID-19 only if another test for COVID-19 is positive, when do you ever test? Answer: you don’t. Luck...
Personal Hygiene is Public Hygiene
Isn’t it remarkable how the recommendations for what to do if you get sick are basically the same regardless of the cause? Wash your hands. Don’t pi...
A Simple Rate Tweak Should Do It
Last week, the Federal Reserve and others lowered interest rates in an attempt to counteract the effects of COVID-19 on the economy. Also last week, The Economi...
Don’t Panic
It may be this is the End of Days, or it may not. We shall see, though it has certainly looked like this century has been rhyming with the last since at least 2...
Thou Preparest a Table Before Me
Last Sunday, the pastor of Freedom Plains Presbyterian Church asked for help cleaning the tiny cups used for Communion. They’d switched to glass, or back ...
Living on Margin
Instant gratification is made possible by just-in-time delivery. What if just-in-time never arrives? I have four eggs left in the refrigerator and half a gallon...
Echoes of Holy Wisdom
What we can do with physics and math–and curiosity–is awe-inspiring. Natural light moving across the surfaces of marble and gold causes glitter that...
What Practice?
Doesn’t this miss the point? Tenzin Priyadarshi, a Buddhist monk and the CEO of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. To auto...
Pride Goeth Before
Most of us find it hard to admit mistakes. Was the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak worsened because admitting the scope of the problem, or that a problem even e...
There’s a World Outside Your Window
Look. Bit of a thunderstorm this morning. All that rain drumming on the roof suggested I stay in bed, so I made oatmeal for breakfast. Just before sitting down ...
How long, O Lord?
“Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this peop...
Why Do I Keep a Library?
Hope. My father keeps a library. His father and mother had books and albums of photographs galore. My mother keeps a library. Her mother and father did not. Vis...
There
The howl of a dogRumble of a distant trainMournful hornBlue jay and crow Some morningsIt is not that the words flow,But that they are right enough.
Happenstance
I glanced up from my worklooked out the windowtherejust under Flight DL5471 Montreal to Laguardiahung a Monarchriding the updraftthen gliding on, above the tree...
Cowpasture v. U. S. Forest Service
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy notes that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided to hear Cowpasture River Reservation Association, et al. v....
Present Opportunities
There’s a sense of responsibility to the warm lump of soft cat in my lap which supersedes all other urges to rise from bed or chair. No contest between this c...
West Virginia Socker
My great-grandfather played soccer. The photograph above is of footballers from Valley Head, W. Va., at Conley Run. Another print of the same picture bears the ...
A New Kind of Credit Card?
A while back Apple announced plans to launch the Apple Card. It launched. A new kind of credit card. Created by Apple, not a bank. Issued by Gold...
On Attempting to Determine the Outcome through the Selection of Candidates
Just in from the Well-at-Least-It’s-Not-New-Jersey Dept., New York is redesigning its license plates again. If you are a New York State resident, you have...