Seeing Beauty I like living in California. There are many reasons for that, not the least of which is that I like the politics of the state, which, while it has its fair share of less than liberal areas, is, for the most part, very liberal. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to live in a state that wants to suppress voting or is prepared to mandate things like abortion denial, not only…
Buen Camino We are in Palacio Carmen in Santiago de Compostela, the end of The Way of St. James or, as it is more commonly called, the Camino de Santiago. The Way gathers from all over Europe , wherever pilgrims start their trek. To get an official stamp and certificate you have to walk at least 100 km of the Camino or, if you are on a bicycle, at least 200 km. Based on that,…
It’s All About Soul This morning we are leaving Bilbao, where we have spent two nights and we are headed west along the coast of Spain going first to a Medieval town of Santillana de Mar, just beyond Santander. It’s a quaint little cobblestoned village with shops and restaurants (one quaint one which we chose to stop in for lunch). We were supposed to overnight there but had to change our route to go further…
World War III When I travel outside the United States, I find myself watching a lot of CNN International. This isn’t necessarily an intentional increased globalization of my perspective, but rather a function of what hotel cable news tends to be available. At home my go-to provider has, as I’m sure most of my readers have guessed, become MSNBC. With the loss over the past year of Brian Williams, that controversial but very tongue-in-cheek anchor…
Moving to Patagonia No, I am not leaving my hilltop. I have determined that I am not ever leaving our hilltop unless and until they carry me out. And no, this is not necessarily about our next trip to the Southern Cone of South America where the countries of Argentina and Chile merge through the Andes Mountains down to the tip of Tierra del Fuego (the land of fire), the archipelago that forms at the…
One Not-So-Angry Man With a Metascore of 96, one of the top ten movies (number five to be exact on the IMDb listings of all-time greats) is Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, about a jury sequestered in a murder case. The story revolves around twelve men on the jury, already a gender-biased and racially-biased statement about the changing times, since this movie’s 1957 release. These are literally twelve white men, serving on a NYC criminal…
Of Fathers and Sons My daughter, Carolyn, has her mother/daughter posse that she always wanted. I’m very happy to see her so happy as a mother, but especially as a mother of two lovely daughters. Based on her blonde/blue-eyed genetics combined with her husband, John’s Norwegian heritage, this has caused her to have two blonde/blue-eyed beauties that share a bedroom and are the best and closest of sisters. Carolyn is an energetic mother (she is…
Living Once Apparently, where I have been saying “Carpe Diem” for many years, even long before the movie The Dead Poets Society, when Robin Williams whispers it to his prep school students, telling them to “gather ye rosebuds while ye may” as written by poet Robert Herrick in 1909, who took the phrase from The Book of Wisdom from the Bible, others have been saying YOLO (You Only Live Once) to imply the same thing.…
Labor Day Labors We all carry our own burdens, whether we want to or not. One of mine appears to be that I think too much. Please don’t shut down and assume that I am being arrogant and suggesting that I am smarter than other people, because I am not. I know my IQ and have for many years and I know I have a modicum of intelligence, but that many of you out there…
The Great Outdoors This morning I am sitting at the top of Palomar Mountain at a wooden picnic table in the shade of a massive (8-10 foot diameter trunk) spreading California cedar tree that is purported to be 400 years old. Actually, that tree is off to the side and cordoned off and I’m sitting in a picnic area that is situated between three of its brothers who are probably no more than 350 years…