Ask Wednesday: Ask Susan

Which man, or neither?

By Susan C. Price

[Questions are followed by answers and then, inevitably by ADVICE...you DID expect that...didn’t you?]

I am in a five-year relationship with someone – we are best friends, childhood sweethearts and ridiculously well-matched. It has honestly been such a perfect relationship.

Tuesday Voice: Posthumously Speaking 10

Detail

Morro Rock

By Mary Alice Condley (1925-2007)

[Editor’s Note: The artist’s daughter, Karen Abbey, recently brought to my attention that her oldest son, Mark Denham, has his grandmother’s painting of Morro Rock, near where Karen and her husband Cliff lived for many years, in and around Morro Bay, California. The rock is a 581-foot volcanic plug located just offshore from Morro Bay, at the entrance to Morro Bay Harbor.

Fifth Monday Fiction: My misadventures with Ron Rudnick

A true story

By Bob Boldt

[The names have not been changed to protect the living or the dead.]

Some had started to believe that the fifth floor of our building was jinxed. Being an urban pioneer of sorts, I was one of the first to settle the unoccupied warehouse at 110 W. Kinzie in Chicago. This was in the late seventies, a decade before gentrification, in which the visionaries, artists, and assorted freaks who inhabited such seemingly unlikely urban spaces were inevitably turned out by landlords eager to “develop” the properties and raise the rent on the very occupants who had made the neighborhood hip and trendy by their presence.

Fourth Sunday from Jingle Jangle

Sugar and Hot Lips (Chapter 5 of Jingle Jangle)

By Jim Rix

[Editor’s Note: As the date of publication approached, billboards around Phoenix, Arizona started announcing the arrival of the book that would blow the cover off the Ray Krone case.]

Fourth Saturday's Loneliest Liberal

In the end, which do I dislike more?

By James Knudsen

If I asked you to guess which of the following I dislike more, working in customer service or getting a colonoscopy, what would your answer be? We’ll get to my answer in the end – I mean, eventually.

Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

There's something Leonard Pitts, Jr. has never understood about the argument over global warming. "Pope Francis urges consensus on climate change." Excerpt:

Thor's Day: Why not just leave it at "you believe or you don't"?

"The tradition of the West is embodied in the 
Great Conversation that began in the dawn 
of history and that continues to the present day."
–Robert Maynard Hutchins

Beliefs matter, and detrimental beliefs need to be challenged

By Morris Dean

A kind, diplomatically worded comment on last week's Thor's Day column, "Why God just has to exist: There's proof!" gave me pause to consider. The comment was from my niece, Dawn Burke, who lives in Springdale, Arkansas. My wife and I visited Dawn and her family in January, less than four months before her mother my sister Flo passed away in nearby Bentonville. Dawn commented:

Ask Wednesday: What does “Underthebelly” mean by his moniker?

Not what I thought

Edited by Morris Dean

One of our highly valued contributors and commentators sometimes comments as “Underthebelly.” Recently, in a public comment, I asked him whether we might do an interview on what that moniker suggests by way of its “connotations, allusions, [and] implications?” – and what he actually means by it.

Tuesday Voice: 50 years ago

An adventurous new life started

By William Silveira

Fifty years ago last Friday, Marylin and I were married at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Visalia, California. We were married at 1:00 in the afternoon on a hot day (about 102° F.), much like today. In terms of Catholic practice, the wedding broke new ground. It was in the afternoon; previously, all weddings were scheduled in the morning. And we were permitted to have a lector to explain the Latin parts of the mass to the guests in attendance. The men in the wedding party wore white dinner jackets and the women were in formal attire.

Fourth Monday Susan Speaks

Detail

Red remains

By Susan C. Price

Sunday Review: The Imitation Game

Barely an imitation

By Chuck Smythe

I finished watching The Imitation Game (2014, directed by Morten Tyldum) with mixed feelings. [The film is a biographical drama about mathematician Alan Turing and the World War II cracking of the Nazis’ Enigma code.]

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 1. “Downstairs at the White House,” from The Unmaking of the President: A Bicentennial Entertainment (a novel)

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Part I is titled, "The Unmaking of the Chief Aide," which begins with the quotation, “Fake it till you make it.”]

Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

Trump Jumps In. [Kathleen Hennessey, LA Times] The GOP presidential field has a CEO, a doctor, three senators and a senator-doctor. Now it has a reality TV star. Donald Trump says he's all in. He trashed just about everyone in a zinger-filled speech. Democrats are gleeful. Republicans aren't. With his billions and famous name, Trump could make the polling cut to reach the debate stage – and suck a lot of air out of the room. Excerpt:

Democrats leapt at the chance to use Trump as an excuse to tweak the other GOP candidates. His entry "adds some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field, and we look forward to hearing more about his ideas for the nation," the Democratic National Committee said in a statement.

Thor’s Day: Why God just has to exist

There’s proof!

By Morris Dean

God just has to exist. Look at all the people who pray to Him, or say "God damnit" when they bang their thumb, or "Oh, God" when they're coming. There has to be God to hear and answer those prayers, to damn whatever He's called on to damn, to resonate with the pulse of the latest transcendent orgasm.

Ask Wednesday: Ask Susan

Should I get myself checked for STDs?

By Susan C. Price

[Questions are followed by answers and then, inevitably by ADVICE...you DID expect that...didn’t you?]

I have been with my partner for eight years and we are due to be married within the next 12 months. The problem I have is that we got together young – I was 17 – and I’d had sexual partners before, but never got checked for STDs.