Trick or Treat Once summer ends with Labor Day, it’s a long run to Thanksgiving. In 1937, thanks to extensive lobbying by the Catholic organization, the Knights of Columbus, FDR declared October 12th to be the national holiday of Columbus Day, which supposedly commemorates the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus on October 12th, 1492. In theory, that holiday broke up that three month holiday dry spell nicely, but it never really took hold as…
Stupid Dreams I am watching a very inspirational movie called A Million Miles Away that was just released. It is a 2023 movie about Jose Hernandez (born 1962 and played by Michael Pena), the migrant farm worker who grew up in the Imperial Valley of California into a hard-working migrant farm family and went on to become an engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, working on laser technology, all the while pursuing his dream to…
Elite Immersion I admit freely to being a devotee of MSNBC. I understand that it subjects me to some derision, certainly from my conservative friends, but also from some moderate friends and even some more liberal acquaintances that consider it invasive to their peace and harmony to submit to the daily media barrage of any sort. And if you spend an entire day listening (as I do via Sirius radio at times like during a…
Sevastopol I just left the Mendocino Peninsula which is just north of the Russian river. When you visit this part of Northern California, you learn that Russia once held a stronghold in this part of the state. There was a Russian colony in this part of California from 1812 to 1841. It seems the Russians thought Northern California was the land of plenty when it came to the bountiful forests and the abundance of sea…
Ought v. Naught The Conclusion I have now done most of what I set out to do with this project with two exception. Like any good plan, I have remained flexible enough to adapt it as I go. I originally set out to review our founding documents and to spend a moment thinking about the lessons from our creative content. The documents were fairly easy to define as The Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution,…
The Great American City If someone asked me what TV show was the first to make an impression on me, I would have to say it was a toss-up between Gunsmoke (started as radio in 1952, then TV from 1962-1975), Have Gun Will Travel (radio and TV from 1957-1963) and Bonanza (TV from 1959-1973). All westerns, which remains the true and original American art form when it comes to TV in my estimation. Last year…
Ought v. Naught The Songs One of the ways we most often communicate from our hearts is through song. The oral history of humankind is deeply rooted in the ballads that talk of deeds and dreams that reflect what we feel ought to be. One of the funniest bits ever performed was The Two Thousand Year Old Man done by Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. In it, Reiner asks the two thousand year old man…
Old Guys Walking It’s 7:30 AM on a Tuesday morning in late September and Kim and I are heading north along the California coastline to visit with our friends from Sonoma with whom we are going up even further north to Mendocino for a couple of days. I woke up about an hour ago, which is my habit, and decided that based on the amount of travel we have today to get to Sonoma from…
Ought v. Naught The Films As I said in our defining manifesto, we feel that the “ought” in our view originates in the heart and only partially in the brain. My pal, Tom, as a video storyteller, thinks that while it’s great to review the documents I’ve recently reviewed, his thought is that we are more likely to find the “oughts” in many of the movies we all so love. The themes of justice, love,…
The Fears of the Aged The older I get the more fearful I get. There was a time, not so long ago, after I had looked into the abyss of a career debacle, when I thought to myself that there really was nothing short of a random bear attack that would scare me. There is a bit of humor in the fact that my worst career debacle was while being the CEO of Bear Stearns…