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Stopping By Woods
Here I’m reading a favorite of mine. Robert Frost’s Brilliantly simple poem. Stopping By Woods
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We are Penn State!
After the initial tremors of the Penn State sexual scandal had rippled away I realized that a little retrospection revealed a somber analysis that is unfortunately not surprising at all. The actions of a perverted coach, while egregious in the extreme, were not the main scandal here; the cover-up that enabled him to destroy so…
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Raising Cain–Then Downing Him!
It took Herman Cain’s sexually inappropriate behavior to threaten his candidacy. The man who has no experience in government, in fact whose chief “qualification” seems to be that he is not a politician (in a time when some sections of the electorate are leaning towards electing a non-politician to political office, and that the highest…
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When Foul is Fair
“To My Mind, to Kill in War is not a Whit Better than to Commit Ordinary Murder”–Einstein When U.S-born Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed by our government a few weeks ago there was in some quarters a mild tone of rumbling dissent, but the overwhelming response seemed to be a collective sigh of…
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Displaced
The sky’s so vast here in the Midwest Stretching like a giant rainbow reaching Side to side across the earth. Some days I wonder if I climb up high Could I just see my home from here? But there are no tall trees in the prairie, The highest thing a dormitory. On rainy days droplets…
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Whither Baseball?
I’ve been watching October baseball these last few weeks. Now I will admit that I didn’t grow up playing the game or even watching it; I’m a cricket and soccer kind of guy. The first time I watched baseball was in 1985. I was in Bahrain and the World Series between the Cardinals and Royals…
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Steve Jobs, Messiah? Hardly!
How easily we turn people into messiahs. Steve Jobs was an innovative genius who professed Buddhism yet pursued a relentlessly material career, creating such a fanatical culture in quest of excellence that many Apple employees were estranged from their families. Here’s what he once said: “You’d be surprised how hard people work around here. They…
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Money for College Athletes
Every so often the debate is revived about the vast amounts of money in college sports, particularly football and basketball, and whether or not college athletes should be paid. The billions of dollars generated in revenues every year (The University of Texas ostensibly made a profit of $68 million on football alone last year) from…
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Don’t Vote!
At what point do we become enablers of a broken system? Worse, when will we start to realize that “the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings” being abused by guilt and misguided fealty to a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy? How long will we continue, like battered spouses,…
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RIP, Dear Friend
One of my dear friends in India Clarissa Fernandes passed away last night, robbed of more possibilities by the sudden outburst of cancer. Through the numbness in my heart I am suddenly overcome by a lack of knowledge–how do you mourn someone you haven’t seen in 10 years and who lived on the far side…