I have often spoken of my love for National Geographic magazine. This has less to do with the memory of the yellow-bordered magazines arriving on our doorstep (I just got my latest issue in the mail yesterday), and more about my childhood fascination with antiquities and anthropology, an obsession which stays with me to this day. When we think of the modern challenges in the publishing industry, we find people (like my slightly older friend…
During the day, I sometimes hear phrases that catch my attention. That happened yesterday while watching a special about the life and times of Linda Ronstadt. I don’t even remember the context, but when she said in an interview, “sometimes I wish I didn’t”, it stuck with me. Linda got Parkinson’s somewhere along the way and it affected her ability to sing. She last performed on stage in 2009, when she was 63. She was…
Riding a motorcycle through the desert during the winter does interesting things to one’s mind. You think about the strangest things. That’s especially so when you decide that it’s not as interesting to listen to music through your Bluetooth helmet, but rather to take in yet another book on tape. Lately I have very much gotten into listening to one book after another, mostly because of the time I spend each day on my treadmill…
The Hidden Meadows Garden Club decided to take advantage of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s program of making admission free for Seniors in February. Timing of the trip could not have been better because the San Pasqual Valley facility was in all its glory yesterday, starting with a cool morning that got progressively warmer as the day went on. I am hesitant to name the attendees since, by definition, that puts them all in…
I don’t think there would be too much debate among Americans and Europeans about who constitutes the Axis of Evil in today’s world. The hit parade would clearly consist of Russia and Iran with a bit more debate about China as the U.S. has trashed its longstanding alliances in favor of Trump’s latest tariff and power-grab whims. The lesser evils like North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba or Belarus SW1W not really on par with these bigger…
Have I ever mentioned how much I like The Economist as a publication? Back in my days on Wall Street, I used to think The Economist was too highfaluting for regular usefulness. It seemed to delve into the esoteric aspects of geopolitics and global economic issues that seemed less than fully connected to the practicum that mostly interested me. That has all changed dramatically for me in retirement. I now read the publication religiously, but…
I currently have sixteen benches on my property. Three of them are down in the play area for when we gather folks for a game of cornhole or croquet, three of them are around the upper driveway and are used for staging various activities (like building new benches!), two of them are in the Cecil Garden and are used for reflection while hand watering the garden, and the other eight are spread out strategically across…
Will wonders never cease…the Supreme Court actually did something right for almost the first time since the Roberts court came into session. In addition to the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kaplan and Ketanji Brown, those in favor of restricting Trump from using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as justification for using tariffs as a cudgel against other countries, were Roberts, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett. The voting patterns of SCOTUS make the Roberts and…
I listened to a video that a friend made based on a letter of advice he had sent to his granddaughter on the occasion of her going off to college. He was giving her advice about how to make friends and specifically how to selectively establish relationships that will help you create the world you want to inhabit as you go forward. It was all perfectly good advice, but one thing struck me about his…
Tomorrow we are doing something I can’t remember doing for a long time…we are going bowling with a group of neighborhood friends. Growing up in Wisconsin in my elementary school days, bowling was a regular activity. I recall it was 35 cents per game, a dime to rent shoes and free to use any of the bowling balls you could find to fit your fingers. We would regularly roll three games and try like hell…