It is Labor Day Monday. I spent Saturday at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove Wisconsin. Two lanes of asphalt, stretch for a half mile that allows two race cars maximum acceleration for a quarter mile, then another 1,320 feet of room to slow the vehicles. That’s drag racing, a type of competition originating…
I am almost finished the Mumford book of over 400 pages. Lewis Mumford has a way-with-words to stoke my imagination. So I push ahead to read his account of the reciprocal influence of machines and society from the middle ages, about 1000 AD to the early 20th century. The quoted lines highlight the pivot…
We often watch the late night news on channel 7, ABC television. This is our ritual, – the final shared experience of the evening before turning in. The broadcast meteorologist took note of the cloud cover that momentarily obscured last night’s eclipse from view. The eclipse of the moon is not something that happens…
The weekend was “car show” weekend for me. By no means 16 any longer but I remain “bitten” by the “bug”. I confess – I’m a gear-head. On Saturday we attended the car show associated with the Waubonsee Community College 60th Anniversary Celebration. Waubonsee CC is impressive on any number of accounts. The college…
Friday by convention marks an end of the work week. As to reality – contemporary societies depend upon labor 24×7, with no general “half-time”, otherwise known as the day-of-rest in traditional Christian cultures. The religious label is borrowed from the Jewish practice of the sabbath. Christians rebranded by asserting that Sunday was the day…
What to write? Morning dawns in majesty, sun on the horizon as a god, blazing with light and life. A retention pond at the rear of Starbucks where I customarily begin each day, is stunning in reflective stillness. The sky is brought down to earth: heaven & earth. There’s a white egret who sometimes…
Living at this time, but wait, – to be alive at any time in the arc of human habitation on this planet — seemed/seems hard. How else to put the matter. Living well in the “thrownness” of indifferent circumstances is a formidable challenge. That said, we “lucky” ones, recipients of higher strata of education…
Perhaps you’ve not had occasion to read one of the translations of the Odyssey. I have not. Perhaps a suitable on-ramp for reading the text is a viewing of Christopher Nolan’s film, which features Matt Damon as Odysseus. Odysseus in Homer’s tale is the king of legendary Ithaca, an island kingdom in the Ionian…
Saturday with a gentle rain. For the past two or three days it has rained off and on. Meteorologists describe a heat dome parked over the midwest, circulating humidity, moisture-laden air, elevated heat, interfacing with cooler flows, thus rain and sometimes high winds. So, plans are adjusted to the prevailing outdoor conditions; I lingered…
Vs. 20 Yes and no Are they so different? Good and bad Are they so far apart? What others fear I must fear too Such recklessness! Without and end! Most people are merry making and happy As though celebrating the Great Sacrifice And climbing a lookout in the spring I alone am unmoved! Like…
