A Prelude to War Frank Capra won an Academy Award in 1942 for his production of his Office of War Information documentary. It was used first to pump up the soldiers in the armed forces that were heading into the war effort after the attack at Pearl Harbor. And then it was shown widely to the American people so as to get everyone on the same page about exactly why we as Americans were doing…
Selling Out the Cheap Seats Tonight we are watching Seabiscuit, which is one of the great inspirational movies. It always leaves me with a lump in my throat, especially when the Depression-era narrative is explaining the backdrop of the socioeconomic lay of the land across America in the 1930’s. Seabiscuit raced from 1935 to 1940, when the weariness of the Great Depression had worn down the common folk of America. Seabiscuit was a horse of…
Prickly Neck Do you know that feeling when the angel of death passes over you and something happens to make you feel kinda weird as the specter of the infinity of time brushes by? I just finished a motorcycle ride of 1,600 miles across northern Spain and I had only one close call when some oncoming idiot came around a curve in the mountains too hot to handle and drifted a few feet into my…
Infrastructure Fantasy Yesterday, as we rode through the countryside north of Barcelona up into the Pyrenees Mountain area, it was hard to miss how lovely it all was. Yes, the weather was perfect, which for a motorcycle tour is paramount, but there was also the issue of the roads. The first half of the journey sort of went from urban to industrial (I didn’t really see so much of what we think of as suburban,…
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…
Howdy Rowdy In the last year, as I have mentioned several times, ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) as a corporate issue has become very mainstream and much debated. Some of this debate is based on philosophical differences between groups that believe it is critical for companies to help society get to the “right” place on important issues in those realms versus others that are simply not used to this sort of extension of the corporate mission…
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…
Long Live the King Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning monarch in the history of Britain, is dead at 96. Her husband Philip, the longest term consort to a reigning sovereign in Britain, died last year at 99. King Charles III, at age 73, becomes the oldest king or sovereign ever to become king (by almost a decade) and the longest serving Prince of Wales in Britain’s history. Joe Biden is 79 and if he…
As Goes Chile, So Goes the World NOTE: The referendum mentioned below was REJECTED by 62% vote, so this traditionally conservative country will remain more conservative than the current administration thought it could achieve. What I admire about the democratic process seems to be in place as the leftist president said the following, ““Chileans’ decision demands our institutions and political leaders to work harder, with more dialogue, respect and care, until we reach a proposal…
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…