Posts Tagged With ‘ @OPINION & MUSINGS ’

The Marshall Tucker Band released its self-titled debut album on Phil Walden’s Capricorn Records in 1973. As soon as my buddies and I heard “Take the Highway” and “Can’t You See”, we were instant fans. In 1977, the band released its sixth album, Carolina Dreams, which was certified platinum in the same year and was their most commercially successful album. It contained the track, “Heard it in a Love Song”, that reached No. 14 on the Billboard charts. “Heard it in a Love Song” provoked philosophical debate that endures to this day. The controversy is about the last two lines... Continue Reading

I was recently in a conversation with a client. We’ll call her Petunia (not her real name; although, I wish it were). Petunia happens to work in a very large (as in global), very dysfunctional (as in no responsibility or accountability) company that has her beyond frustrated. Part of her frustration is that she’s very responsible and very willing to be accountable. But her responsibility and accountability aren’t acknowledged, rewarded, or reciprocated. During the conversation, I asked a question it had never occurred to me to ask before: Do companies like that breed irresponsibility and... Continue Reading

We live in a horse race. Two nags, Gluefoot and Gimpy, are neck-and-neck coming down the stretch, and we have no idea which horse will cross the finish line first. Gluefoot represents the uncertainty of whether we’ll persist in our belief that we can control (because we’ll be blamed for) everything. Gimpy represents the uncertainty of whether we’ll come to realize we’re insignificant and ineffectual beyond the ability of our imaginations and our egos to comprehend such a thing. Exhibit A is climate change. I came across an article in The New Yorker entitled, “What a Major Solar Storm... Continue Reading

I was going to excerpt portions of President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union remarks and annotate them with snide comments. But four things happened: I realized snark is indistinguishable from truth at this point, and snark doesn’t sit well in some circles. Neither does truth. And here we are. I wouldn’t have enough time to peel the onion sufficiently enough to respond to all the delusional falsities in Uncle Joe’s remarks and still have time for everything else in my life. I found this post in The Federalist that highlights 30 of the lowlights. So, I decided to let it go at that. I... Continue Reading

On The Scale of Self-Deceit and Frivolity Unto Extinction, there are points well beyond first-world problems. They indicate the extent to which life in the United States is luxurious enough that we can afford to make shit up to worry about. They also confirm the point made by Bill Maher that Americans are a silly people. Consider this item, which was brought to my attention most recently: On February 9, 2024, The Virginian-Pilot newspaper ran an article with the headline, ”PETA wants carousel maker to stop creating rides with animal figures”. Not animals. Animal figures. At the very least,... Continue Reading

Last week I wrote about the lethal peril to which we find ourselves subject as the result of anthropogenic climate change and two of its perniciously wayward children, bomb cyclones and weather whiplash. Well, just when you thought it was safe … Last week, the Washington Post ran a story — “This weather phenomenon on Lake Michigan stunned meteorologists Friday” — that’s sure to keep us on Red Alert until the vernal equinox, at the very least. Get a load of this: An extremely localized but intense band of lake-effect snow … [dropped] nearly three feet of snow in a narrow swath only... Continue Reading

In the northeastern United States, where I happen to live, there’s an annual climate-change event. It’s called winter. During this event, the temperatures fall, as do little white flakes the natives call snow. We’ve already had seven or eight inches of the stuff fall this month. And there’s more to come: After a mostly calm and mild December across much of the U.S., Mother Nature is making up for it with a stormy and cold January, and there’s more wild weather on the way. The deadly storm that’s raking the eastern U.S. this week is the opening act for what’s to come over the next... Continue Reading

That may seem like an odd title for this post because it’s a celebration of the Holiday Season, a reflection of my incorrigibly stubborn hopefulness, and an acknowledgement of the inscrutability of human nature. So, perhaps I should explain. The world, as you likely know, is rife with turmoil. I say as you likely know because the world’s always in turmoil. We’re human beings. Turmoil is what we do. And why not? We’re really good at it. We’ve been good at it for our entire history on the planet. That turmoil manifests in our 24-hour news cycles with stories of rising antisemitism, of... Continue Reading

I wake up most mornings with questions on my mind. Generally, they’re relatively innocuous or inconsequential things like: Why do I have the theme from Mannix stuck in my head? Do bald men think toupees are fooling anybody? Why do so many people believe in gravity? Why do some Kindle books cost more than the same books in print? If I pay my Social Security taxes, why am I taxed on the money I paid into Social Security when I get it back? If Santa Claus knows if you’ve been bad or good, why did he bring me anything, ever? Who the hell did let the dogs out? If an asp in the grass is a snake,... Continue Reading

During my time as a student at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut — from which I earned a B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Philosophy — I had a teacher, Professor Langston, who’d earned his Ph.D. in Intellectual History. He was, therefore, justifiably enamored of the work of existentialist deconstrutionists and post-modernists such as the Austrian-German philosopher Edmund Husserl (who founded the school of phenomenology before going on to found the Proßnitz School of Driving in his hometown); Husserl’s disciple, the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger; and more contemporary... Continue Reading