First Monday with Characters

Our new calf, Midnight

Edited by 
Morris Dean

Bettina Sperry, calving

With all the snow and sub-zero temps, the days on Franklin Hill Farm have been spent ensuring that the newly arriving and newly born calf was greeted by the warmth of a cared-for mom. Beginning on Valentine's Day, I spent every morning and evening hauling water and hay to the cow. Finally, on Thursday, Feb. 19th, in single-digit temperatures, she calved her little one. Franklin Hill Farm has four more calves on the way in the coming few months. Our small business thrives.

Sunday Review: American Sniper

Not in Eastwood’s cross-hairs – but still disappointed

By Bob Boldt

As for American Sniper (2014, directed by Clint Eastwood), if Clint was out to direct a propaganda film, he did a pretty hopeless job of it. There was little to recommend it even to the Tea Bag nation. He could learn a lot from ZD-30’s Kathryn Bigelow. Now, there is a true embodiment of a latter-day Leni Riefenstahl.

Fourth Saturday’s Loneliest Liberal

Mo...m

By James Knudsen

Two-thousand fourteen ended with my siblings and me officially joining the ranks of the orphans following the passing of our dad Mo. I commemorated the event by changing the wallpaper on my smart phone to a very “Mad Men” shot of dad that was taken at a studio. This was replaced after a month with a picture of Dad and Mom which remains to this day.

Fish for Friday

Edited by 
Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

Best road. Transfăgărășan, Romania:
    The Transfăgărășan or DN7C is the second-highest paved road in Romania. Built as a strategic military route, the 90 km of twists and turns run north to south across the tallest sections of the Southern Carpathians, between the highest peak in the country, Moldoveanu, and the second highest, Negoiu. The road connects the historic regions of Transylvania and Wallachia, and the cities of Sibiu and Piteşti.

Thor's Day: Elvis's sign from God

So strange it must be real

By Jim Rix

It is commonly known that Elvis was a religious man. What is not well known is the roll Josef Stalin played in cementing Elvis’s faith. Here in performance by Al Stewart is the story, “so strange it must be real.”

Ask Wednesday: Does it help to pray for weather?

What do you think?

By Morris Dean

I turn the question back to you, because I don't really know, although I admit that I confidently assume it doesn't help to pray for weather. Do you pray for weather? Do you find it useful?

Tuesday Voice

Oliver Sacks

Thoughts upon hearing that Oliver Sacks will soon depart

By Bob Boldt

It was a dark and stormy night when I ventured out into one of the biggest blizzards of the young year 2007. My destination was the Lensic Theater, where one of their landmark discussions was being held by the Lannan Foundation. The night’s guest was Lawrence Weschler, who was hosted by Oliver Sacks.

Fourth Monday Susan Speaks

Abstractly with paint

By Susan C. Price

Fourth Sunday from Jingle Jangle

Ouija Science (excerpt from Chapter 16 of 
Jingle Jangle)

By Jim Rix

[Editor’s Note: Blurb from the dust jacket: “Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out is a remarkable book, a page-turner that asks all the right questions, shocking us out of our complacency by exposing the deep flaws in our criminal justice system. It should be required reading for every college student in America.”
        –Gary T. Lowenthal, Arizona State University law
        professor & author of Down and Dirty Justice
    Today’s excerpt can be considered an elaboration on a comment made this week on a recent Thor’s Day column: “There is an upcoming trial for an American hero Chris Kyle, in which each side will introduce their experts on PTSD. How can experts have two different opinions and call it science?”]

Third Saturday Fiction

New cover, updated on Amazon this month
(Kindle price $0.99)

Chapter 24. 
Air-Am, from the novel Boystown: The Cocaine Highway

By edRogers

[In the previous chapter, published here on October 18, James Hamilton had enlisted in the US Army to get away from a Colombian drug cartel. But things became confused, and Chapter 23 ended with Hamilton sitting alone on his bunk attempting to sort out what had happened. “Two days ago, all I wanted was a place to hide. What was I doing in this outfit? Why promote me to a warrant officer?...I was sure there was a puppeteer pulling strings, and I was the puppet.”]

The next six weeks were hell. The fun times the crews had before my arrival stopped. We ate, slept, shit, and pissed in our planes. Moreover, when we weren’t flying, we were in one class after another. They pushed two years of training programs down our throats and made us chew each bite.

Fish for Friday

Indian fishermen pushed their boat through
plastic waste last month in Mumbai

Edited by 
Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

"Study Finds Rising Levels of Plastics in Oceans." [John Schwartz, NY Times] Excerpt:

Thor's Day: Freedom of religion

How far should it go?

By Morris Dean

The U.S. postage stamp commemorated religious freedom and the Flushing Remonstrance, which was, according to Wikipedia:

Ask Wednesday: Chuck, why are you agnostic with respect to "God"?

Guessing at the inconclusive

By Chuck Smythe

Chuck, a couple of weeks ago, in our question to Susan C. Price ("What do you think about religion?"), we indicated that you’ve said you don’t know enough to go one way or the other, so we labeled you agnostic. Please tell us what that means for you. Why are you agnostic with respect to "God" and other religious beliefs?

Tuesday Voice: Everyone poops

School projects

By Bindi Danchenko

[Editor's Note: Last year, when she was seven and in the first grade, the author's art teacher assigned a project. The pupils were to create a display featuring a character from one of the books they had read. The following account was constructed by combining answers from the author to questions from her mother ("she laughed quite a bit while writing her answers") and to follow-up questions from the editor.]

I chose to do a character from Everyone Poops [by Taro Gomi, School & Library Binding, 2001] because the book is funny – it shows their butts – and because everyone really does poop. Even the animals poop.

Third Monday Musing

The right to vote

By Ed Rogers

We have all placed our trust and hope on one candidate or the other at some time in our life—if you haven’t, why vote at all? The right to vote has forever been in the hands of the rich. White Americans never questioned the right to vote until the voting act of 1965. Outside of the South, people seemed to believe that everybody was voting who wanted to vote. But in the South, citizens with money pretty much controlled who got elected, and they controlled who was allowed to vote. A number of blocks were placed in the road to guarantee white control. From Wikipedia’s article on “Voting rights in the United States”: