All Posts
Washington’s Swamp
The latest Congressional approval rating I’ve seen, from December, reveals that 15% of our citizens approve of the work of our Washington legislators. Fifteen percent? That high? Was the poll over-weighted with lobbyists, lawmakers’ relatives, and residents in mental institutions? Who isn’t aware that our proud career politicians, when they’re not squabbling with each other, […]
Berlin and the Brandenburg Gate: Conclusion
Note: If you’re new to this blog, or if you don’t remember details of my first experience at the Brandenburg Gate recounted in an earlier post, you may want to go back and read part one of this story before reading what follows. My last trip to Berlin came nearly four decades after I […]
Christmas and Beyond
Christmas is rushing in and arriving tomorrow, the Covid-19 Christmas of 2020, that strange mutant promising to be different from any Christmas we’ve ever known. Tomorrow’s odd offshoot will be marked by smaller family gatherings, or none at all, by folks humming familiar carols rather than singing them (their closed mouths hidden behind masks, their […]
Taking on South American Arrow Poison
This piece is a bit different from others I’ve written here. I wrote this one years ago and published it in the Kansas City Star. I dug out a clipping of it today, retyped it with minimal changes (it originally was written with a typewriter), and here it is, an old story revived. I hope […]
One on One in Kuopio Addendum
If you’ve read my previous post, the one in which I describe my energetic examination of a doctoral student in Kuopio, you know that story ended with a critical question unanswered, with a mystery unsolved. I have just received further intelligence pertaining to that story, as I describe below. However, if you haven’t read my […]
One on One in Kuopio
After a refreshing night in my Kuopio hotel, I took on a hefty breakfast before getting down to the business I had come for. I opened the dissertation of the doctoral student I was to examine, now being familiar with him as the young pilot who had ferried me from Helsinki the evening before. His […]
Flying above Fire
When I landed in Helsinki, the middle leg of my previously-mentioned tour, I was met by the young pilot assigned to fly me to Kuopio. By odd circumstance that fellow was the very candidate I was to examine on the following Monday. Apparently those who arranged this scheme thought it would provide a pleasant avenue […]
Second Thoughts on First Impressions
We all know the cliché, the one that usually goes something like this, “You won’t have a second chance to make a first impression.” There is of course irrefutable logic tied to that notion, but if one digs more deeply into the concept, thought-provoking flags begin to wave, at least they do if someone as […]
Free Travel Addendum, and Note
After writing about my jaunt to Jerusalem, Kuopio, and Oxford, I dug back and discovered I had gone on eleven other trips in 1987, so I soared through more clouds that year than I would have guessed. Each journey brought back wisps of memory, one of which made me cringe. Below are the trips and […]
8 – Free Travel
Two decisions of mine, both made relatively early in life, provided means for me to travel a bit over the years, mostly on somebody else’s dollar. The first was my decision to enlist in the Air Force at age nineteen, a wise commitment that sent me zig-zagging through a number of states before being shipped […]
