LoveLife

I've never understood the phrase fairytale endings to describe those Hallmark Television like codas where everything works out for the best. Most childhood fairytale I endings I recall were anything but happy. Most were intended to teach a moral or life lesson and the underlying theme was that life was anything but a bowl of cherries. Now I do not watch a lot of commercial television, in fact nothing on the major networks. Much of what I do watch is foreign and unlike the m

In the run up to the midterm elections amidst shifting public sentiment and economic hardship I've been seeing more frequent posts on social media asking how it is possible that people on one side or the other of the political divide continue to subscribe to their partisan views. Posts often describe cult behavior or political echo chambers as the cause but I wonder if those are just facile descriptions rather than explanations. We might not find it flattering, but social sc

The past is confusing. Our memories are unreliable reporters of even recent occurrences. The reconstructions we summon may be embroidered with self serving decoration, regrets, or harsh judgement according to our mood, but seldom do they reveal the dispassionate truth. Dates too are especially squishy, decades sliding back and forth like days, not months or years. We are careless archaeologists unearthing memory's artifacts without regard for their provenance. Hardest of al

Unless you are a confirmed Luddite or living in a cave in an aboriginal state of being, there is a better than even chance you have had an encounter with Tech Support at a consumer electronics company. With the introduction of AI in almost every device--even if it is only for the sake of marketing hype--encounters with one's stove, or refrigerator will soon be next. We can be assured they can and will cease working at some point necessitating a phone call, or worse yet, an o

At the risk of disorienting you dear reader allow me to begin this post with the answer to last week's murder mystery. The culprits, as I have reconstructed the crime scene, were 1) our lawn guy, who in the process of cutting and edging I believe neatly severed the poor mousie's foreparts from his hind. The tip off was that my initial discovery was just the morning after our yard had been mowed. 2) As to how the body got into a garden bed a fair distance away, my current th

While working in the yard the other day I came upon the remains of a Field Mouse in one of the foundation beds. I'll go no further to avoid offending squeamish readers but will add that it was clear it had not perished from old age. The opening lines of Robert Burns' poem sprang to mind. "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie!" It is a lovely poem written in that Scottish patois which can be a delight or a confounding puzzle. But I digre

Over the last two weeks we've been experiencing that annual rite of Spring, when the Azaleas, and the Dogwoods blossom, while the tall pines and sundry trees that adjoin our property scatter their pollen and seeds everywhere. It is not a little. Over those weeks I have bagged up six 40 gallon containers worth for the compost heap. Soft wooly bears in bright green, worm like pine droppings and ever present pine straw, along with some branches and pine cones have dispersed o

As a general rule I rarely give up on a book without at least giving it every chance to convince me of its merit. Over the last few weeks I have twice 'noped' out of works that were recommended to me. I may be ungrateful, or perhaps I am missing something you be the judge. The first novel began with a familiar if slightly trite premise which I will spare you. I am not a literary snob, I could have lived with it if the characters were intriguing or a plot twist offered som

I've been reading a series of short stories written by Cixin Liu, and one in particular was an absolute gift. Perhaps I should say two gifts. The first was the story itself, provocative and deeply satisfying as his works always prove to be. The second was a fresh insight into physics and the nature of the universe, a lesson if you will. If you are not familiar with Cixin Liu, he is a Chinese author who gained a following in the past few years largely as a result of the US

A staple of every fledgling comedian's repertoire are jokes about men who refuse to ask directions despite the fact they are hopelessly lost. As their poor wives roll their eyes, these gents protest that the destination is just around the corner, and we laugh because we recognize the grain of truth in the joke. I am not of this ilk, but I do confess that I have a penchant for ignoring instructions--the kind that accompany a box filled with dozens of pieces of something offer

A disturbing dream the other night featured something I have not thought about in many years, a barn that sat on the property where I lived for a time in New Hampshire. It was old and appeared decrepit, its tin roof, added sometime in the 1930's, sagging with the weight of accumulated years and its boards gaping with cracks and checks that let in the daylight. That is where our cows and horses lived when not in the pasture, where the turkeys, chickens and barn swallows strut

A confusing and contradictory litany of reasons have been offered up by the administration regarding its actions in Iran. These include among others, the other guy made me do it, the other guy in this case being Israel. Punishment for abandoning an agreement on nuclear enrichment is another, but of course it is we who unilaterally abandoned that agreement. Perhaps the most revealing rationale was cited by the administration's press secretary who noted that the Commander and

Who of us at some moment or possibly throughout our lives has not felt regret? Whether minor or major, enduring or dismissed in a day regrets are the reflections that teach us to avoid missteps in our future. Some of us unfortunately require more than one lesson, and some regrets accompany us long after the cause has passed. What then should we say about those who hold authority and have no regrets? Should we see them as resolute, infallible, omniscient? Does it inspire in

Following my recent post about Edgar Cayce I got to thinking about the Old Testament prophets. Admittedly they are not figures that spring to mind for most of us unless we happen to learn about one or another in a homily or bible lesson. We can read what they pronounced, fiery injunctions, loud lamentations and mysterious visions of a future that came to be or has yet to unravel. But I wondered at what it must have been like for these men and women in their day, before their

Yesterday we celebrated Valentine's day, an event that has somewhat occult roots in ancient Roman and early Christian traditions having little to do with our contemporary customs. Those find their origins in Victorian England but mass commercialization is almost entirely an American invention, one that is propelled by nearly 30 billion dollars in annual sales of cards, flowers and candy--along with other baubles that are intended as a pledge of life long love. I am hardly op

Now that is a headline I imagine you did not expect. What in the world do these two have in common and why oh why are they the subjects of this week's post? Well I'll get to that but first, for those who may not know who Edgar Cayce is a brief bio is in order. Cayce was an American clairvoyant who gained notoriety claiming the ability to diagnose and suggest treatments for ailments through visions he had while sleeping or under hypnosis. In addition he lectured widely on

Over the past few years, research on the gut biome has produced a number of increasingly startling conclusions about how the human body actually works. We learned that Alzheimer's disease, indeed, many immune related diseases appear to be closely linked to the bacteria that dwells in our guts, and many other syndromes afflicting large numbers of people also trace their origins to imbalances of our bacterial composition. A more recent revelation gives new meaning to the expre

Now decay is a word freighted with such negative meaning as to cause anyone's soul to wither in contemplation. Nevertheless, decay has its purpose, rendering what once was consequential substance into unrecognizable matter and by nature's healing hands into the nurturing compost from which new life will arise. That pretty picture, however, is not so much the case when it applies to urban blight. Today's decaying cities are too young yet to pass into moss covered ruins, burn

Although it is sometimes described as the weak force by physicists, gravity may be evidence of a very different force in the universe. An arguably radical theory advanced by Dr. Melvin Vopson, suggests that gravity acts like a sophisticated software program that compresses matter, reducing the vastness of the galaxies to a manageable data point. Ok, on the surface that sounds a bit, well, wacky, but allow me to go on for a bit and explore this concept. Compression of info

Historical Fiction as a term of art is something I suspect will be familiar to most of us. But a chance mention the other day struck me in a way it had not previously; as an unintentional riff on the capriciousness of what we call history. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that history is the one thing we openly acknowledge is fiction. Some examples come to mind. History is written by the victor ; that certainly acknowledges a lack of