The Lesson Of Stacey Abrams

Sometimes columnists like to write about the United States the way we frequently refer the “third world” (much of which is doing better at confronting Corona than the “first world.”) Provincial words rarely used for Americans, like “villager,” crop up in these columns, as do references to despots and corruption. Sometimes, when you use the […]

Falling Back

In the days of yore, this was my favorite day of the year, the day where I gained an extra hour of sleep. That was back in the days when sleep was a precious commodity, not just the way I spend about half my life, so now I don’t care and am firmly in the […]

Hollow-een For Some (But Not Others)

As a semi-reputable photojournalist, I recognized the moment when I saw it. But then the “semi” part kicked in, and instead I am going to have to use 1,000 words to paint the picture for you. Oz and I have a get-to-work routine that really isn’t. Some days we walk here at home and drive […]

Counting Covid

There’s a lot of talk about “bubbles” these days, often in reference to covid, but it turns out I was living in a little bubble all my own, completely unaware. As a general way-of-life statement, my bubble isn’t huge, really, although it’s substantially larger than it seems once you stop to consider the multipliers. It […]

The Perilous World of Finance

There is yet another bike race taking place; we’re in the second week of the tour of Spain (La Vuelta a Espana, and here I would use a tilde but under New WordPress I don’t know how to do that). But I am not watching it, particularly. It is starting to feeling a bit of […]

Windows of Inopportunity

You will be glad to know — or maybe it’s just me — that it wasn’t just me: our one-year-old windows are dysfunctional. Which does not make me glad. About a month ago, as the weather started cooling down, I started closing our year-old slider windows, intending to lock them down for the winter. Problem: […]

Winter of Discontent

The other day, for the first time in my 58 years, I looked at a denuded tree and thought, “It’s going to look like that for months.” The thought depressed me, which was another first — I’ve never minded winter before. To be perfectly correct, I did kind of mind one winter in my youth. […]

Maskless Wonders

A public health board met recently in Idaho to hear from a public health epidemiologist that the hospital in Coeur d’Alene is essentially overrun with covid patients. Room capacities have been doubled; new beds have been purchased, and everything is full as staff is short-handed and the doctors are worn out. Additional doctors testified about […]

A Crappy Philosophy

When you watch a lot of SpongeBob, you also find yourself watching a lot of commercials aimed at kids, and it has irritated me for decades just how gender segregated the commercials are. Commercials for “boy” things show humans who are do-ers: action-oriented, things to build, take apart, throw, catch, very hands-on. The girl commercials […]

Rejected, Dejected

Bike races often start with a “neutral zone” — yes, just like the Federation and Romulans in Star Trek — a few kilometers where the peloton rolls out gradually, sort of a parade through the starting town. It’s a neutral place where nothing of note generally happens. Except in this year’s Giro d’Italia, when in […]