Top posts
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Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Luhan lived in Taos, NM (where I am currently visiting) and probably lived most of her life here. She was a great promoter of the arts in this area - painting and writing. She was also terribly wealthy. She also had several husbands and several...
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What I write and Why
I was asked about the above, so here goes... My blog, entitled "A Look at the World," is intended to give my perspectives on the world from religion, with a cultural, political and historical flavor; politics, as illuminated by history, in the mold of...
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Joe Lewis vs. Max Schmelling, 1936, Berlin
The Wall Street Journal had an op-ed this morning about the above, how the German announcer had to eat big-time crow when Schmelling hit the mat in the 1st round and stayed there. Nazi pride went down with him, too. I think it was Sinclair Lewis who wrote...
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Why History?
~~ History is a "strange" thing in the sense that there are few real facts in history. Something like, "the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776" is a fact. However, something like, "Barak Obama is a socialist" is really just open to different...
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Writing History
It's said that each generation rewrites history to suit its own needs and from its own perspective. Some also say that whoever controls the meaning or interpretation of history controls the minds of the people. Why study history then?? How many actual...
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King for a Day...
I've been reading up on civil disobedience and non-violent resistance, a la Thoreau, Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Of the 3, only King gets his own day, Jan. 21 I think.) (Hence the above title.) King really studied and put into practice the notions...
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Keep Droning On...
We are in an age now of robotic warfare. Drones drop sudden, unannounced death out of the sky in order to "off" bad guys. A robot was used by the police to blow up a police shooter. We normally don't see the word "assassinate" used to reference what we...
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The Lady Eve
The 1941 movie The Lady Eve was a well-produced romantic comedy starring Henry Fonda as a bumbling, naive but wealthy catch of a bachelor and Barbara Stanwyck as his "street-wise" pursuer. Stanwyck and her card-shark father come across Fonda on an ocean...
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Zen and the Art of Napping
Well, I hope that got your attention. Actually, while I know quite a bit about napping, I don't know that much about Zen! I'm not sure the two are even compatible, since Zen purports to be a heightened awareness of self and surroundings (I think) and...
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into NIGHT
I just read Elie Wiesel's story "Night" about a 16 year old boy enslaved in SS-run Nazi concentration camps like Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Buma for a year. The 16 year old was him. I remember films on T.V. of the allies liberating such camps in the spring...
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Several Thoughts for the Day
Recently, a number of indoor shopping malls throughout the country, including Aurora Mall in the Denver area, experienced altercations among young people, probably some violent. Do they have nothing else to do? Are they unemployed? According to a Mr....
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August Rush
August Rush is the unusual title to a movie about the power and beauty of music. A budding classical viola artist and a raucus singer/guitar player in his own rock band meet at a party and have an intimate tryst in New York City one night. She becomes...
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Some Words on Howard Zinn; Also on the Blues
Historian Howard Zinn said that socialism thrived in the U.S. before the Bolshevik Revolution, the late 1800's and the early 1900's, showing that it was not a product of the Russians and their ideology. Leon Trotsky, he says, was not the great humanitarian...
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The Education of (Roger Karny), oops, I Mean Henry Adams
Picked up a copy of the above book, "The Education of Henry Adams" written by Mr. Adams around 1910. It made me think of writing my own educational memoir. Adams was the great-grandson of John Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams. Not too many can...
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That's Crazy
I saw a new movie, it probably won't do much at all at the box office, called God Knows Where I Am - a documentary. But I think it was well-done and an important statement... on the matter of mental illness in our country right now. It wasn't real deep,...
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Zen and the Difficulties of Life
Robert M. Pirsig, who died April 24, 2017 at the age of 88, wrote his classic novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in 1974, much of it based on his own life. In it, he narrates a motorcycle trip with his son through the U.S. west while presenting...
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As I See It
Unions... Are they outmoded, or are they still viable? If still viable, how do you think they should be changed? If outmoded, what other protection for workers can you suggest in their place? Has our society, including the workforce, been so atomized...
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The Catholic Church
I attended mass this a.m. at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church with some friends. It's a smaller church, maybe 50% Hispanic, not very rich. At least the attendees are not expensive-looking. Only one Catholic church in Denver I know of that's more humble...
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Ned and Pen Hallowell
Hallowell is a name well-known to Swarthmore College students, alumni, staff and teachers. It's the name of one of the dorms on campus, one that I stayed in for one year. What's significant about the name of Hallowell? A new book called "Thunder at the...
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Greeks
Greeks - what does the word signify to you? Greek letters for a sorority or fraternity? Greek New Testament? Baklava, Gyros, Souvlaki? Parthenon, Athens, Odysseus, Achilles, Trojan War, the Illiad? Two things recently, for me! I just watched the movie...
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The Battle of Algiers
A French movie from the early- to mid-1960's titled The Battle of Algiers , is a semi-documentary telling the story of Algeria's struggle for independence from French colonial rule. European nations, particularly France, England, Germany and Holland had...
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A Rigged Election...?
Donald Trump says this election will be rigged. He's nuts. He's nuts not because the election will not be rigged, but because he's not saying HOW it will be rigged. Every election this country has ever had has been rigged, I think. But they have not been...
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Medicare and Social Security
Medicare and Social Security are 2 products of the 1930's democratic administration of Franklin Roosevelt, and his female Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. They are compassionate programs, products of the Great Depression's poverty for many U.S. citizens....
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On the Road... again!
The above title is to a Willie Nelson song of years ago. But what I want to talk about is - Jack Kerouac's novel, On the Road , which first appeared around 1950. It's said Kerouac wrote his book while inebriated - with alcohol. Personally, I can't imagine...
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Two Different Views of the French Revolution
Both Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities," and Victor Hugo, "Les Miserables," wrote novels on the above phenomenon. But both looked at it from very different sides. Dickens writes of the wrongful imprisonment of an upper-class man, his release, then...