News from Rio Chico: 33 °F., 98% humidity, winds WSW at 38 mph, misty, and low cloud cover. That’s the only news today in Rio Chico and it hasn’t changed much for a week. Also, for the last week nobody died or got hurt, the two kids that missed school were actually sick, and the […]
“With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face—at least to my taste—his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple […]
Now that the true red white and blue has won the Copa America, I was pondering what to do about the summer doldrums, or rather how to avoid them, when luckily, I ran across a little known essay called Insect-Musicians and Cricket Champions of China. A mouthful, yes, and I won’t tell what all is […]
Speaking for myself, I truly enjoyed our meeting today: it was a masterpiece. Honorable mention goes as follows, and not in any order of importance, or due to the prominent ranking of the person that came up with it, although I will admit it’s always hard, if not impossible, to beat Serenísimo: (These are simply […]
“For those that don’t know it, I will say it now: the ocean, even when glassy smooth, has a pulse. Tatiana could not feel it, but in time, I knew she would. I felt it. I could hear the strain on the engine as it rose up what I imagined where flattened rollers that given […]
An excerpt from my book, In the Land of Fires . . . “With my cross-bow, I shot the albatross.” Why anyone would want to hurt one of those beautiful, elegant flying creatures, was beyond me, but I’m sure many had over the years and like Coleridge’s ancient Mariner, lived to regret it: by being […]
So, have your prayer meetings helped stem the violence? Your vigils? Your words of comfort? Your calls to heal? To heel? What about holding hands while walking downtown with big banners and protesting by shouting “lives matter?” Not yet? Try going to church, calling for unity, waving the flag and saying “this must stop,” one […]
A major part of Rio’s winning Olympic bid was a plan to capture and treat 80 percent of the sewage that flows into Guanabara Bay, something organizers now admit will not happen — certainly not by August, if ever. Guanabara Bay was discovered by Portuguese explorers on Jan. 1, 1502 — hence the name […]
In a futile effort to educate myself, I took a tour of the subatomic particle world this week, only to discover I am ignorant there also—it’s definite. The main difference being that before I was ignorant of being ignorant and I much prefer those days. I recall the world was simple then and so were […]
I’m 2/3 of the way through Einstein’s biography by Walter Isaacson, and what a life that man had. And not only because of his intellect, but also because of the times: he was a Jew in Germany before WW1, after WW1, and during the rise of Hitler prior to WW2. Some of the highlights: Fair […]