Perishable I am sitting here on election night, 2021 and it just so happens that Kim and I watched a documentary on Gettysburg. We were just looking for something to fill in after a movie (Cast Away) that ended about an hour before we generally like to head off to bed. We did not choose it for any politically-motivated reason. And yet, the last part of the documentary focused entirely on Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.…
Traveling to Enlightenment We went to see the new Ridley Scott movie The Last Duel last night at the local Angelika Film Center. Once again, it was very lightly attended with a mere 8-10 people in the well-appointed theater. The film is set in 1386 or so and chronicles what was the end stages of the Middle Ages in Europe. The movie makes reference to the economic hardship to noblemen and their estates by virtue…
The Antisocial Network Facebook can’t seem to help itself from getting in the news at every turn. It has achieved what I’m sure many people would have declared as unlikely and that is to get just about everyone against them. Watching the 2010 Jesse Eisenberg rendition of Mark Zuckerberg as he spawnsThe Facebook from his Harvard dorm room out of spite for the woman who spurned his affections, you do get a prescient view of…
Dispensing Justice The Supreme Court has always existed on a pedestal for me as it probably has for many Americans. It is the final arbiter of justice in a land that has reigned supreme as the pillar of justice and democracy for two hundred forty five years. There have been plenty of smaller nations where democracy and justice have been upheld and are prized characteristics of their national social consciousness, but none has stood as…
Sticky Finger Politics I went through my normal ritual of reading a recently written story to Kim. It’s my way of editing (I catch many, but not all, mistakes editing this way) and it helps me to read the story aloud so that I can determine if the story hangs together the way I intended. When I finished my reading I asked Kim what I should write about next. I have a ritual process for…
In the Land of Nod Somewhere along the way in my education, I always thought of the Land of Nod as being in the state of sleep and drowsiness, referring to that haziness that occurs when we traverse the land of wakefulness into deep sleep. The reference seemed onomatopoetically appropriate since it envisioned someone’s head nodding off into slumber, but just barely such that there was still borderline consciousness. It is in that moment when…
Apollo 13 Last night I watched for the umpeenth time, this Ron Howard film about the troubled flight to the moon manned by Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert (last minute replacement for Ken Mattingly) and Fred Haise. The roles were played by Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon (Gary Sinise) and Bill Paxton. Ed Harris plays Gene Kranz, the Flight Director at Mission Control in Houston. Every time I rewatch a movie I see new things or think…
Getting Started in a Ford And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson. For some reason, Kim put The Graduate on TV tonight. It has been a while since we’ve seen the movie, but some things always stick with you. In the case of The Graduate, the memorable runs to everything from the dialogue to the music. The music in this most famous Mike Nichols classic from 1967 was, of course, the dulcet tones of Simon &…
It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood This neighborhood is physically defined as a small hilltop outcropping that stands between a little valley called Hidden Meadows and the run down to the coast. As I may have mentioned before, there are about forty homes up on this hill on what I would characterize as six roads. There are hill crest homes around the edges and several inner homes that don’t seem to care so much…
The Burden of Expectations You have often heard people describe how they are too hard on people because they demand a lot of themselves and find that they should do likewise for others. That is a smallish dilemma when it comes to managerial oversight because one can set objective standards and allow people to perform against them such that you can always define the parameters of success based on how the universe you are trying…