Tuesday Voice: Growing up in America

Arrival in New York Harbor

By Rolf Dumke

The sky and waters were calm on Saturday, June 7th, 1952, when the Liberty ship made a slow right-turn into the panoramic view of New York Harbor.

Third Monday with Bob Boldt

Orwell rebooted

By Bob Boldt

Someone recently asked me what I thought about a statement attributed to persecuted whistleblower, Thomas Drake: “If everything is a target, there is no target.” I said I thought that what he was driving at was, the bigger the haystack the harder to find the needle. When you collect everything on everybody, the amount of data is so overwhelming that anything relevant is nearly impossible to find.

Sunday Review: Citizenfour

Friends and countrymen, give me your ear

By Bob Boldt

I have spent my life making documentary films. Some of my mentors, men I have worked for, like Denis Mitchell, are now appreciated only by film historians, while others, like Studs Terkel, are better known. For over half a century I have seen some of the most amazing technical and aesthetic innovations in the area of documentary film and video. I feel as if I have seen the industry move from the stone age of production technology to the digital space age in the span of one lifetime.

Second Saturday’s Sonnet

Will and testament

By Morris Dean
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Time was, we carved the cello’s Venus mound,
Composed the music for the melody,
And aged the ocher wood to free the sound
To sing the cello’s heart from memory.

Fish for Friday

Brown Bear, Katmai Wilderness,
Katmai National Park and Preserve,
Alaska
[Image credits: Robert Amuroso]

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

4th & 5th of 18 Photos from The Smithsonian’s “Wilderness Forever” Photo Contest

Thor’s Day

Pentecost at Chimayó 
(a short story)

By Bob Boldt

[Foreword: Last Sunday I attended the Catholic mass memorial service for a dear friend, Tony Barnicle. As readers know, I am no fan of any organized religion. I attended the mass out of the deep love and respect I had for my old friend. I must confess to being deeply moved by nearly all forms of worship. I feel the psychic force present in all such events, be they Santeria drummings, Baptist revivals, or the Catholic mass. This service was no exception for me. About the time the communion was being served, something released a memory from three years ago when I attended another distant mass with Tony and his wife, in the Sanctuary of Chimayó in New Mexico. I subsequently described the experience in a short story. The communion liturgy last Sunday somehow brought back all the sensual experiences of that other special mass, in Chimayó.]

Ask Wednesday: Ask Susan

About giving advice that a person can hear

Edited by Morris Dean

During the venerable run of your “Ask Susan” columns, whenever we have forwarded you a question, you have always seemed to rub your palms together in delight, often replying within only two or three days. Giving advice seems to be your métier, or calling. What do you think of that? Does it feel like a calling, or just what does it feel like to you?
    You should just know by now that i will resist any labeling whatsoever. Not my calling, just something you thought of (tho, weird, i was thinking of the same thing when you mentioned it) and i love doing it.

Second Tuesday on Franklin Hill Farm

Midnight, our newest calf

Food & the farmer

By Bettina Sperry

“The food which was not, he causes to be.” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of farmers as patient creators dependent on the sun, weather, and seasons. And so it is.
    I love the work I do on my farm. I love the horses and cows that I produce. It takes many months to achieve the goodness of a single calf or foal. One of the hardships of farming is recognizing the end result of farming livestock is often the production of food. When you love your cows and calves, or sheep and goats and chickens, this isn’t a lighthearted matter.

Second Monday Music

A performing-arts intensive at the American International School of Utah

By Christa Saeger

One of the things I do besides direct orchestras in the Department of Performing Arts at the American International School of Utah, in Murray, Utah, is to help out with performing arts “intensives” for its students each trimester.

Sunday Review: Calvary

Don't presume

By Morris Dean

St. Augustine wrote somewhere that the reader should not despair, for one of the two thieves [being crucified the same day as Jesus] was saved. Nor should the reader presume, for the other thief was damned.

Thirst Satyrday for Eros (in fiction)

How the prairie got its prick
(a short story)

By Bob Boldt

“The construction of this tower and the surrounding office complex that houses the Nebraska State Capitol building was completed in 1932.”
    Vivian Albers’s voice was quiet and strong. Because of the anteroom’s acoustics, it was not necessary to project above a conversational level in order that the flock of high school sophomores could hear her. She continued, “Because of the 400-foot height of the tower, and the lack of any other competing landmark, it is not unusual for the tower to attract a large number of lightning hits, sometimes even in relatively clear weather. The architect, Bertram G. Goodhue, was a protégé of the eccentric inventor, Nicola Tesla, and was rumored to have been interested in his electrical experiments, especially those dealing with the storage and transmission of electromagnetic energy.”

Fish for Friday

Edited by 
Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

Pretty entertaining, some of the "art of snow" that people create in their front yards.

Thor's Day: Verbicide

Aristotle (384–322 BC). Roman copy after
Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BC
(alabaster mantle a modern addition)

A crime of rhetorical proportions

By Kyle Garza

The best defense against the whimsical rhetorical strategies of any good prosecuting attorney is a solid understanding of Aristotle’s three appeals of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. To Aristotle’s mind, these three are ultimately what lead to a listener’s persuasion in favor of a speaker’s position. While the ethos of a speaker rests entirely in his personal character, his pathos and logos are established through the words he employs in his rhetorical attempts to persuade his audience. In matters of persuasion, all winsome speakers must sway the hearts of their audience by using diction that will appeal to their emotions (pathos) and their logical thinking (logos).

Ask Wednesday: Are copies of JT: Another Mighty Midyett actually available yet?

Yes! In several formats

By Morris Dean

You ask whether copies of JT: Another Mighty Midyett are actually available yet.
    Yes, they are! As of this week, you can order paperback copies directly from the publisher, Xulon Press.

Tuesday Voice: Posthumously Speaking 8

Detail

Homestead

By Mary Alice Condley (1925-2007)

[Editor's Note: The artist seems to have given this painting to her sister Flo Elowee Story for her birthday, for on the back, in Flo's calligraphic hand, is penned:

June 14, 1997
From DEAR Mary
My Sister