Who could be more American than Andy Williams? He sang the theme song from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Moon River, in 1962 and then never looked back until it was eventual put into the Librsry of Congress a few years ago as a hallmark of Americana. At the height of his success, in 1966, Williams wrote the theme song for another great movie that I’ve written about, Doctor Zhivago. That song was called Somewhere My Love…
A Funny thing happened on the way into 2025. We were promised by candidate and president-elect Trump that he would immediately bring the wars in Gaza and Ukraine to a brisk end. It’s been almost 90 days since the inauguration and whatever ceasefire existed in Gaza has been overtaken by events and resulted in Israel continuing to execute attacks on Gaza’s Palestinian community. As for Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the man who Trump has called a…
A profound question for the ages that has challenged philosophers, theologians, and thinkers across cultures and throughout history is why evil exists. There are several perspectives on why evil exists. From a theological standpoint, many traditions grapple with the “problem of evil” – how to reconcile the existence of suffering with an all-powerful, all-knowing, and benevolent deity. Some propose that evil is the necessary consequence of free will, allowing humans to make moral choices. Others…
A few months ago I mentioned in one of my stories that one of Donald Trump’s golfing pals, Steve Witkoff was a shocking choice to me as the new Middle East negotiator on the Israeli/Gaza situation. I likened in to the equally shocking choice of Jerrod Kushner for that role in Trump’s first administration. Of course, Jerrod got what he wanted from the gig after the Emirates and Saudi Arabia (via his big bud, MBS)…
It is still early April and yet the weather here on our hilltop has turned summer-like. The weather forecast says it will be 80 degrees, but if the hilltop holds true to form, that means it will likely be in the mid-80s at least. My annual AC checkup was last week and the system is raring to go, as are the Big Ass fans on the ceiling, which are already slowly turning as though to…
While we were rounding Cape Hirn last month, Viking showed the movie Master and Commander, starring Russel Crowe as the captain of a British Naval vessel who is chasing a Spanish galleon through the Southern Ocean waters, trying to capture its prize trade booty before peace got declared back home between their two nations. The concept of rushing to justify larceny rather than anticipating peace was somehow portrayed as noble and manly in an era…
“Of Mice and Men” is a novella written by John Steinbeck and published in 1937. It is set during the Great Depression in the agricultural fields of Northern California, where it follows two migrant ranch workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who move from place to place in search of job opportunities. They are the real Americans in the heartland during the worst of the Great Depression. That Great Depression was caused by a complex…
I started college in August 1971. That was almost after the main protest years of the 1960s had ended…. almost but not quite. The turbulent protest years that characterized the prior decade had peaked in 1969. I always think of the Kent State massacre as that moment. But during the fall of 1971 and the spring of 1972, ostensibly throughout my freshman year, there were still plenty of anti-war protests. As a guy who had…
The era of globalization doesn’t have a single, universally agreed-upon starting point, as it evolved gradually through several phases. There was the early globalization (1500s-1800s) that some historians trace to the beginnings to the Age of Exploration and the establishment of maritime trade routes connecting Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. There was also the Columbian Exchange of goods, people, and ideas between hemispheres, marking an early form of global interconnection. The Columbian Exchange was…
When I write these stories, I always start with a title and then go rom there. The title is a reflection of what is on my mind and what resonates and sounds “catchy”. Having written 2,400 such stories over the past six and a half years, I have stumbled onto the same title more often than I care to admit. It’s a bit like seeing the edge of your imagination when it happens, but I…