Tear Jerkers I just watched two movies while flying cross-country. The first was on the flight from Norfolk to Atlanta and the second I just finished as we are heading into San Diego. The first one was called Hard Miles with Matthew Modine. It tells the story of a teacher and his four juvenile delinquent students who are taking a therapeutic bicycle trip to the Grand Canyon. The pathos runs thick between the struggles of…
Things I Do Not Understand I know that most of you are thinking this is going to be an extraordinarily long story given the title, but I will try to keep it down to my usual size and declare right up front that this is not intended to be a comprehensive list of things I do not understand, but just the ones that are on my mind today. We are on our last day at…
Now, on the subject of DJT v. United States of America. I don’t know how any of you feel about the SCOTUS decision on presidential immunity (I, clearly, dissent), but since our system, right or wrong, makes it the new law of the land, it has certainly significantly raised the bar on the standards for which we must all consider putting someone into that now especially vaunted chair. I do not know whether this decision…
The Heat is On Here in Virginia Beach, it is 86 degrees with 76% humidity, which my weather app says makes it feel like 98 degrees. If you asked anyone in our party, especially those who wandered through the USS Wisconsin, going four decks below the water line into the bowels of this steel battleship, they would add about another 15 degrees to that. I checked our hilltop and see that it is 84 degrees…
Life’s a Beach The Supreme Court has been very busy as it comes to the end of its term. Most of today’s attention has gone to the decisions regarding the obstruction of justice ruling regarding the January 6 insurrection, and about the overturn of the Chevron case which effectively guts the ability of agencies to operate in the manner in which they have in the past. But there’s always a silver lining and today’s silver…
Artificial Travel I saw an interesting article in the New York Times this morning. I suspect that its the sort of article we are going to read more and more often as the applications of artificial intelligence start to shine through and change our lives at the day-to-day level. This particular piece was about a reporter who was planning a vacation to Scandinavia and used some combination of three AI bots to plan her trip…
Get Up, Joe I have not been in the habit of blogging continuously, but I feel that today has been a very interesting day and that it’s worthy of a bit more attention from me, whether anyone wants to hear it or not. After last night’s difficult debate performance, I struggled with the conversation on Morning Joe where I estimate that ⅔ to ¾ of the Democratic ratio pundits were talking about calling for Biden…
Why So Serious? I have a friend that is one of four of us on a text chain. We are all more or less the same age, ranging from 65 to 80, averaging at about 73. The youngest and the oldest are Republicans and voted for Trump each of the last two presidential elections, obviously successfully the first time and unsuccessfully in 2020, The other guy and I are both liberals, but I cannot say…
Doing the Right Thing I spent all day yesterday getting ready for and anticipating the presidential debate. I cancelled going to the airport here in Norfolk to pick up my youngest son and his wife in order to not miss a moment of that debate. From the first moment of the 90-minute debate, it was a jaw-dropping and heart-palpitating experience to watch as Joe Biden fulfilled all of our worst nightmares of looking every bit…
Mid-Atlantic Madness Neither Kim nor I are big Social media users any more though I do watch Instagram to keep up white the next generation and we all tend to use Snapchat for a family chat group and photo vehicle. We call it Marin Madness and its pretty much restricted to the kids, their spouses and us. I’ve gone so far as to steal that sentiment and call my games area on the property Moonstruck…