Fiction/Humor Memoir

Stanley Tucci Go Home

Stanley Tucci Go Home There are certain actors and actresses that everyone likes. That can’t be said for all actors and actresses. I have always found it interesting that while Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner have drawn lots of controversy, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep have stayed above it all and are beloved by all. That’s all a little easier to understand with star-quality actors and actresses who get paparazzied to death on a daily…

Continue reading

Love

The Many Me

The Many Me I have had a difficult day today and it is for the thinnest of reasons, but perhaps also, the most fundamental of reasons. This morning I did what I always tend to do when traveling, which is to get up somewhat earlier than Kim. As I usually do, I went down to the breakfast room ahead of her and proceeded to get started without her. I tend to do a full, what…

Continue reading

Memoir Politics

The Real Rome

The Real Rome Kim booked us for a tour of the working side of Rome. I can only assume that I have done a good job of showing her all of the regular tourist stuff that constitutes the bulk of the Trip Advisor tours she can find on the internet. What she did instead of that was find a woman who proposed a tour of the Testaccio and Ostiense areas of the city, areas that…

Continue reading

Politics

The Frustration of Open-Mindedness

The Frustration of Open-mindedness In teaching my ethics course, I spend some time telling students that one of the benefits of the course will hopefully to help them learn the value of keeping an open mind to the views of others, even when they are quite different from their own. I say that the value comes from both gaining the respect of those you interact with and in broadening your own views. The problem I…

Continue reading

Memoir

We Come and We Go

We Come and We Go There are two schools of thought when it comes to personality. One is we are who we are and that we never change. I guess you would call that the “nature” camp. The opposite would logically be the “nurture” side which believes that we are all a function of our environment and that we are constantly changing. While I am certain that people think about these issues in the context…

Continue reading

Memoir

Going Back in Time

Going Back in Time We all know that time travel is a load of crap. But you don’t have to jumble your molecular structure and go all H.G. Wells (He published The Time Machine in 1895) to take your mind back to ancient times. I have always had a thing about antiquities, probably due to growing up for a few years in Costa Rica, where pre-Colombian art was on most everyone’s mind in the late…

Continue reading

Memoir Politics

The Palestinian Problem

The Palestinian Problem Some problems never go away. And some problems just bubble away under the surface, hiding in wait, biding their time. The problems of the Middle East seem to embody both sorts. History and religion are difficult backdrops for justice and nowhere on the face of the earth has more of both than the corner of the world where three continents meet. Africa, Europe and Asia and their diverse cultures come together is…

Continue reading

Memoir

Why Humans?

Why Humans? I am drawn to unusual articles from sources like National Geographic that challenge the very foundations of our existence on this planet. Today I saw an article that, in some ways, does a better job of challenging those foundations than most. I think we all understand that human life began, for one reason or another in East Africa. A great deal of recent research indicates that this precept is a bit mistaken in…

Continue reading