All right, I have to admit it. The Kansas Jayhawk football team is for real. They are not 10-0 because of good breaks or bad opponents. They are 10-0 because they are a very hardnosed group of football players. It would have been pretty easy to lay down under the pressure that Oklahoma State put on them yesterday. Instead, the … Continue reading
There is a rich tradition in politics, worldwide, of the “Loyal Opposition.” Wikipedia defines this as “the concept that one can be opposed to the actions of the government or ruling party of the day without being opposed to the constitution of the political system.” Somehow, we seem to have lost track of that in the United States. George W. … Continue reading
Every night at five minutes until seven, I call my father in Nebraska. Often, he doesn’t answer the phone at other times because it is very frequently charities that he has never heard of asking for money. So 6:55 p.m. is our little code. He know that it is me and he picks it up. If you have been to … Continue reading
There are many things that I do not understand, but I really don’t understand the current overwhelming attraction to make-believe. We are deeply involved in a war in which we have no business. Our President is even more deeply involved in stripping the Bill of Rights away from our Constitution. The opposition party, such as they are, seems unwilling or … Continue reading
It seems that, because of the screenwriters strike, everyone is asking what people will do without television. Given the state of television, I have been doing without it for a long time. Were the screenwriters never to return, I would not notice. If I had given any thought to most television screenwriters before the strike, my thoughts would not have … Continue reading
I found myself marveling yesterday over some correspondence in which I am involved. An artist in Rome, having met a curmudgeon in Kansas via StumbleUpon, has entered into a conversation about religion and physics. All of this occurred in a very short time and has not required any stamps. I understand that there have been pen pals for a long … Continue reading
Generally speaking, changes in the English languages are good. I especially like the additions, many of which come from slang, and there are literally hundreds of these each year added to a dictionary near you. Lately we have been seeing a lot of inclusions from black street culture, enough that I knew a person a few years back who was … Continue reading
It is, after all, football season, and I am in Lawrence, Kansas so I would be remiss if I said nothing about the remarkable season our football team is having. Thus far, it has been remarkable. The Jayhawks first four opponents were relative cupcakes, so it was hard to tell what the team was capable of. Since the pushovers, they … Continue reading
I manage, somehow, to forget things from year to year, only to be reminded by nature that they call them seasons for a reason. First we had the Great Wasp Invasion of 2007, in which a series of wasps appeared on the inside of the blinds in our West-facing living room windows during a KU football game. That was solved … Continue reading
One hates to see NASA have the difficulties that they are currently experiencing. They have enough trouble with aging equipment and an embarrassing lack of budgetary support. Even the most fervent anti-NASA flat-earther would have to admit that we get a lot more out of the space program than we get out the wars that we are currently spending billions … Continue reading