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Showing posts from 2014

As the Pendulum Swings

Not a fun topic, but something I've been thinking about: We’ve been asked repeatedly, angrily and condescendingly: What is it about No Means No that you don’t understand?! What I’d like to know is when did No Means No turn into Only Yes Means Yes (my words, no one else’s) as seems to be the new normal, particularly on college campuses ? I remember seeing an informal poll once where women were asked if they would prefer to be asked before someone kisses them for the first time. Having just recently (recent to that poll, not to today!) been interested in a very hard-to-get woman of whom I asked that very question (she said Yes!), I was sure the majority opinion would be that they prefer to be asked. In fact, it was overwhelmingly the other way, like almost unanimous (though I have a feeling the women were thinking only of guys they would actually want to have kiss them, not some random street miscreant). I could give an actual timeline and list of all the conflicting mes

I love this guy, even if he is a grump...which helps explain why some people claim to love me too, I guess.

From a recent interview with Bill Murray in Rolling Stone: Doing a Q&A at a Toronto movie theater, Murray is asked, "How does it feel to be Bill Murray?" – and he takes the extremely meta query seriously, asking the audience to consider the sensation of self-awareness. "There's a wonderful sense of well-being that begins to circulate . . . up and down your spine," Murray says. "And you feel something that makes you almost want to smile. So what's it like to be me? Ask yourself, ‘What's it like to be me? ' The only way we'll ever know what it's like to be you is if you work your best at being you as often as you can, and keep reminding yourself that's where home is." I love this, though too often, when I am being me is when I like me least of all…and it most frequently occurs when I open my mouth.

Christmas Magic

This morning on Facebook, I posted a reference to one of my 2 favorite Christmas songs coming on the radio and wrote:   I know I'm totally in the Christmas Spirit when I'm driving to work down rte 52 after a wonderful Penns Table breakfast with Michael Rellahan , and I hear the opening chords to my favorite Christmas song...and as now seems to be a Christmas tradition, by the end, I have tears streaming down my face. Dang song gets to me every single year at least once. ‪#‎ sucharomantic And my sister Laurie asked why I like it so much and then mentioned how she has a fave song that she hasn’t heard yet but had rules about how she needed to hear it, which, not surprisingly, are my rules exactly , as she wrote:   “I own the song, but it has to happen organically - no cheats allowed! Guess I better stream Christmas music on my laptop as I wrap today, coz time is running out, and as the singer says, "It's Christmas time!" and...."Santa Claus is C

Deliverance from Evil

Sitting in Quaker Meeting yesterday I had a rare (religion-related) insight. I say “rare” because I’m fairly certain that there are so many people in Meeting on any given First Day who are focusing so much more directly and concentratedly on communicating with God than I am, when I am more likely to be thinking about things like this  (an oldey but favey of mine from 5+ years ago on my old blog). It struck me that while we spend so many hours and so much of our life in Meeting trying to learn important messages from God, some of the most important lessons, like compassion and tolerance and loving unconditionally, can be best learned, not from God, but only from our interactions, and often the most painful interactions, with other human beings. And those challenges, not just experiencing those tough interactions with people, but learning how to address the pain and anger with compassion, tolerance and love, come no more easily to us than picking up a banjo and playing an intricat

Now, some would say, all I need to do is take my own damn advice!

I had intended to make this a far longer post, but in retrospect, even though it meant a lot to me at the time, and seemed like it would take a lot to explain, in retrospect, it was not very earth-shattering and will probably be fairly simple to summarize. A month or so ago, with prodding from my friend Mike Rellahan, I requested a meeting with Republican Congressman-elect, Ryan Costello. And somewhat to my surprise, within a few days, I received a response from his aide, accepting my request and suggesting a time and date to meet. So a few weeks ago, after a great deal of thought, and not a little angst, I went to his office in downtown West Chester and met. I can't say I was entirely surprised, but I was certainly encouraged, that I not only liked him but more importantly, liked his approach, and there were very few things on which we disagreed. On the other hand, I made a point of keeping my 3 topics, the 3rd of which we agreed to keep off-the-record, which I understand mean

Presidential Prognosticatin'

This week's McLatchy-Marist poll has Romney and Bush leading a Republican field of 15 potential candidates when GOP voters were asked who they would support: Mitt Romney: 19% Jeb Bush: 14% Chris Christie: 9% Mike Huckabee: 9% Ben Carson: 8% Rand Paul: 5% Ted Cruz: 4% Rick Perry: 4% Paul Ryan: 3% Rick Santorum: 3% Marco Rubio: 3% Scott Walker: 3% John Kasich: 2% Bobby Jindal: 1% Carly Fiorina: 1% Unless Rs vote in Iowa the way the Iowan Ds did in 2004, choosing Kerry based on his electability, over Howard Dean, who I'm sure they liked more, I don't see the Rs nominating any of the top candidates above. I think there are only a handful of serious possibilities of getting nominated above, but foremost is Paul Ryan. I see him as the favorite and I also think he can beat Hilary. Other serious possible R nominees: Romney - maybe, but not exciting enough as a candidate, not to mention as a person Bush and Christie - their unfavorables are too high among

Just a tweet, tweet post

I can't resist posting these tweets: "Of course Republicans respect Putin. He tanked an economy, started an illegal war, and hates gays." — @SkepticPugilist So, this whole 'lame duck' thing is really slowing Obama down eh ? — @amyewalter

Do you see what I see?

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One of my favorite riddles, if it even is one, is: Can you see farther in the daytime or the night time?   Spoiler alert, or, what we used to call the answer to the question, is that even though the obvious answer is daytime, you know it can’t be daytime or the question wouldn’t be worth asking. But then the quandary becomes Why or How can it be nighttime, when it’s dark out and we obviously can’t see as far? And so the riddle is best answered with a question: Can you see stars in the daytime? J Sitting in (Quaker) Meeting this past Sunday, I decided to do something that I rarely ever do in Meeting, which is to close my eyes. (The reason is because I am almost certain to do what a certain someone had done right next to me this past First Day – fall asleep!) And when I did close them, I decided to just watch the inside of my eyelids. Well, actually I don’t know if that’s what I really see when I shut my eyes. What I do see seems to fall into at least two categories. The

Hopefully I write one of these in less time than it takes me to write some of the blog posts i've been wanted to post

When I grow up…ok…retire…there are three books I want to write: 1 – On Fame ·         I want to interview famous people to ask them what it means to be famous o    Is it what they always wanted? o    Was it worth it? o    What do they wish they had done differently? o    What advice would they give to someone they see whose fame is continuing to grow, maybe too fast? o    Do they miss anonymity? o    Does the idea of their fame decreasing scare them? o    How has it impacted the people they knew before they got famous? ·         And I want to interview: o    the uber-famous, from ex-Presidents to Taylor Swift (!) to Michael Jordan o    the medium famous – the D-listers o    the once famous who are no more o    the 15 minutes of famesters, …for all of whom there’d be different kinds of questions. 2 – Aphorisms/Truisms ·         What are the basic things we should all know – from: o      the best known – the key to real estate is

Letter II

...and as promised, here is the letter that was in the Daily Local on 12/9/14: http://www.dailylocal.com/opinion/20141209/obamas-economy-strategy-remains-healthy-and-stable It is such a reflection of the conservative-leaning mainstream media that so few of these facts are ever publicized. There was a conference of conservatives in Washington DC many years ago where a Frank Luntz-type announced a new strategy to the eager participants - that heretofore, they should never refer to the media without emphasizing that it was a left-wing mainstream media or a liberal press - yeegods! It's been a remarkably effective campaign, even though there is easily shown evidence that if anything, it is the exact opposite. And the letters and calls published in the Local are so incredibly one-sided, I really want to try to at least present some facts to the readers who so easily gloss over the almost daily drumbeat of positive news buried in the business section, adding in what is v

DLN Letter of 11/20/14

I had a letter to the Daily Local published yesterday, but before I post a link to that one here, I should go back a few weeks to the one that was published around 11/20/14 that the Daily Local never posted to their website. People who don't get the Local have asked me to let them know when they get in so they can read them, and so here it is: Along with the appointed experts on the election last week, I thought I might add my non-expert observations of last week’s elections. It seems that except in the case of our wonderful new Governor, voters rejected the Democratic party almost across the board. That is, we rejected the party responsible for 65 straight months of economic growth, a record 56 months of consecutive private sector job growth, unemployment falling from 10.1% to 5.8%, (after losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month when Bush left office, the country is now adding a minimum of 200,000 jobs per month) the budget deficit reduced by two-thirds, and almost daily records in

Troll self-revealed! And his query answered.

Following up on my post below about the RW troll, that also referred to my having been impressed by Mr. Oleck's lack of hesitation in identifying himself in previous posts, as it turns out, they are one and the same. Thank you, sir, and I understand your confusion over how to avoid the anonymous tag. Blogger.com makes it harder than necessary to avoid that. So, to reply to your question regarding the President's impact on the price of oil, I am at a disadvantage for a few reasons. I do very little online between 5pm Friday and Monday morning, and further, since the Local is so bad at posting letters to the editor, or, thankfully, Sound-Off, for that matter, I don't remember what I wrote exactly, but that said, here is my reply regarding your questions. From this link, you can see an excellent summary of Obama's involvement, but highlighting here: Here are some of the other measures recently taken by the administration to boost domestic oil production: * An incr

Gotta problem with me?! Let's have coffee and we'll tawk.

Unfortunate that I even need to write this, but there is an anonymous right wing troll on my site who posts occasionally literate comments, so I feel a need to state that my policy, heretofore not posted, is that unless I know the commenter personally, as I usually do, or unless the person identifies themself instead of hiding behind a cowardly nickname, I won’t reply to their comments. And I want this site vitriol-free, so if your post is respectful, I will generally enjoy engaging in any discussion you’d like to have. And that includes you, Mr. Oleck, whom I have complimented in the past for your courage in identifying yourself without hesitation. But I don’t want to get into a lot of back and forth because I’ve found that there is rarely any point in trying to convince each other of something that we are so strongly in opposition to.

I don't even know why they make any other kind of cookies besides chocolate chip cookies.

If you want to know what I think of Oatmeal Raisin cookies, and I'm sure you woke up this morning wondering exactly that, watch this video, and substitute the words "eating oatmeal raisin cookies" for the words "drinking merlot" and you'll get the drift. As someone wiser and funnier than me once said: "Oatmeal raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies are the main reason I have trust issues." OK, I'll just cut and paste it here, but the video link at the top is funnier: Jack : If they want to drink Merlot, we're drinking Merlot. Miles Raymond : No, if anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am NOT drinking any fu**ing Merlot! And now I feel a need to apologize to merlot, which is one of the few wines I actually occasionally like.

Does this make me anti-biotic? Or anti-antibiotic? And would that cancel itself out, or make me Pro-biotic?

I think I know why Cheryl doesn't seem to be getting better from her daily Lyme Disease IVs. Her doctor has her on both antibiotics and probiotics at the same time and they're apparently cancelling each other out.

Or maybe I'm just among the maddening whored

I’m a little uncomfortable with all the facebook posts opposing stores being open on Thanksgiving.     Each time I see one of the posts, I reflexively think “Yeah, absolutely!” But the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s not as simple as that.   I think those sentiments may have more behind them than we realize...and worse, I wonder if some of us aren’t being just a wee bit hypocritical. I totally support the idea that Thanksgiving is for families. It’s my favorite holiday of the year. And ideally, all places of business would accommodate people who want the day off to be with their family as well as the employees who would like to work if it means they’ll get time-and-a-half or double-time. I wonder if most of the reason we support department stores being closed on that day is it is more about seeing the crushing, madding (and maddening) hordes rampaging through various department stores at 5am to get the big bargains. I think it gives most of us the creeps and re

Love/Hate relationships

My Republican Christian homophobic friends defend their hate by arguing that they have nothing against “those people”, and in fact, they love them. Their favorite phrase is “I love the sinner, but I hate the sin.” It suddenly struck me today that I feel the same way about my Republican friends. I love them, but hate their policies that, in my mind are responsible for virtually every ill facing this country right now. That said, given human nature, for all the frustrations inherent with a two-party system and the fights over filibusters and holds and cloture and bills that only pass the House but not the Senate and vetoes of bills that have passed both, I still think we have a great system of government, if only because of the human nature that results in overreach and corruption that comes with absolute power, both of which inevitably occur anytime and every time one party has a huge advantage in government at any level. So I guess when it comes to our government, I also l

Turning a negative comment about a negative comment into a positive.

I’ve received two negative comments about my negative comments on the post from yesterday…and with good reason. So I deleted the negative tag at the end cuz I’m a sensitive guy…and also because, as I say, their criticism observation was entirely justified. I remember when my dad would make some self-deprecating remark as was his wont (what’s YOUR wont?!)   and it always upset me because I never thought his comment was justified. Ever. OK, usually. Maybe because I so admired him…adored him. In this case, it goes back to the issue of what is blog-worthy. And of course, the answer is, WGAF – Who gives a…fart.   It’s like emails that you don’t need to get, or junk mail. If we don’t want it, we can use the trusty delete button. I won’t trash myself again. Thanks for the good feedback on my bad post, everyone. Though Cheryl said that post was her favorite that she’d seen in a long time because it was so positive…except for the last part. So I’ll take that as a good thing! Thanks,

Kill me now or kill me later

When I was a teenager, the biggest focus in the USA’s foreign policy arena was the Cold War, and trying to reach “détente” with the Soviet Union, to reduce the numbers of ICBMs (which, as a 13-ish year old made me laugh every time I heard some adult very seriously use the expression…kind of along the lines of when someone says Uranus. And thank goodness I have a 14-year old son (for many reasons) so I can still laugh whenever someone refers to Uranus, so it isn’t weird that a 57 year old does. But I digress.) Now where was I…let’s see…your anus…I see BMs…oh, right, nuclear annihilation.  And around the same time, there were talks of secret meetings between Henry Kissinger and the Vietnamese to end the Vietnam War. Today there was a news bulletin from the NY Times:   U.S. and China Reach Climate Deal After Secret Negotiations China and the United States made common cause on Wednesday against the threat of climate change, staking out an ambitio

Which might also explain why kids have such a tasteless sense of humor

We’ve all noticed how much children dislike foods with strong flavors and generally gravitate to more bland foods like hot dogs, American cheese, white bread and chicken tenders, but as time goes by they are more tolerant of foods with a stronger flavor. But I’ve also noticed that they seem oblivious to the incredible colors of the leaves during the changing seasons that I am all the more overwhelmed by and am frequently pointing out to our kids. And I wonder if, as our sense of taste diminishes as we grow older, our sense of appreciation for color and shadow and beauty increases as we get even older, which would also explain why people so often seem to have an enhanced creative streak once they’ve retired.  
I belong to a private political page on Facebook that consists mostly of liberals, and one of them asked for our opinions of the 3 cable political channels: MSNBC, CNN and FoxNews, and this was my reply: We watch Morning Joe every morning and usually enjoy it, until recently when they became obsessed with ebola and ISIS/L coverage, but thankfully they're off them now. The rest of their lineup is pretty dreary and repetitive. The panel shows with Chris Hayes and Steve Kornacki are pretty unwatchable - clearly designed by and for MENSA-types, god bless em, but which clearly excludes me. FauxNews is more cartoonish in its presentation, laughable if you don't take it too seriously, which sadly, millions of people do, but for all their warts, they are the only network that understands how to entertain viewers, from their lighting, to their sets, to the appearance of their talent. The sexy (?) blondes, the morning camera pointing at the same level and directly in front of the wo
For better or worse, I've decided I need to get more active on this blog, and for my "subscribed" readers, that's going to be somewhat tiresome since most of the posts will also have appeared on my facebook page, but, since my page has some RW trolls, I fear they are missing some actual balance in their readings, so will put them here too. But I promise not to make these the only entries here. In fact, I have a couple coming up that have to do with sex, so don't totally unsubscribe yet! :-) Here's the first (repetitive) one: When Bill Clinton moved to the right after the 1994 midterms that swept Rs into Congressional power, Republicans howled in outrage because he was taking away all their talking points. I never understood that. The article below tries to show, in some cases successfully, that the Rs have finally started to move to the center, at least in word, though not yet in deed. I would be thrilled if they actually changed their votes to finally

"On the other hand, maybe I need more things to carry through a buffet line, not fewer." - Jamie McVickar on annoying stuff in relaton to the size of his belly

Two totally different things annoy me for the exact same reason: -          In a list of newsworthy quotes, they first give the quote and then the name of the person who said it and the context. Apparently I’m first to read the quote and then guess the person and their reason for saying it? I need that first, not after reading the quote. -          Utensils at the beginning of a buffet line. I don’t them at the beginning, they just make it harder to fill up my plate, though for any of you who have seen my belly size the past 20+ years, I can’t make a really great argument for this one personally. “So Annoyed! I want something done, and I want it done now!” -          Jamie McVickar, on quote attributions and silverware in buffet lines

Because poor people LOVE being poor

I wish I had been writing down all my thoughts about the disastrous election this week, but one thing that came to me was this: Middle Class Americans seem to be more upset with people who make less money than they do than they are with people who make more money than they do. And I’ll bet you can define whether a person is more likely to have voted R or D this week based on their answer to that very question. Inconceivable when one considers the level of income inequality in this country...and only getting worse.

Strangers in the night...and the people we met in Providence, too - PART Three of Three

My third of 3 stories about the people Cheryl and I met in our last 24 hours in Providence is maybe the least interesting to me, at least in the long-term, though he was certainly the most entertaining. If I were to write a transcript of the entire conversation I had with this very Italian-American gentleman, you probably would think I was either making it up or was furthering stereotypes that have been promoted through the years regarding people of his heritage. I met him our last morning, as we waited in line, again, this time for about 45 minutes for an amazing breakfast in a restaurant that was about half the size of the room you’re sitting in right now. (Yeah, that’s right – I can see you from where I sit…and you look good!). It only had 4 tables, 2 of which sat two people, the other two sat no more than 4. As we waited outside the building (semi-needless to say, but I will anyway, there was no room to wait inside), I saw a few chairs sitting out front of the real estate

Strangers in the night...and the people we met in Providence, too - PART TWO

If you are reading this post without having first read the one underneath it, Cheryl and I spent most of a week in Providence, Rhode Island recently, for my annual work conference and this is the second of three parts, about a few of the characters we met there. After settling in on our restaurant choice that last night, the 3 rd of the recommendations our legally/morally/karmically-challenged friend had made, we were sitting at the bar, killing time until our table would be ready in 25…no 40…how about close to 90 minutes. Cheryl was responding on her phone to an Etsy order while I was content to watch the people around the bar and small restaurant, making up stories in my mind about each one as to the relationships of the couples or intentions of the others. Seemed like quite a few middle-aged women hoping to be noticed or remarked on by someone, anyone, if only by the girlfriend they were sharing their drinks or meal with. One woman, I noticed, was sitting by herself at th