Today is Memorial Day, a day on which every American should be grateful for the sacrifices of members of our military, both past and present. We enjoy our current freedoms only because, over the history of our Republic, members of the armed forces have been willing to fight and die for the United States of [...]
Archive for May, 2010
Thoughts From A Grateful American On Memorial Day
Posted in America, tagged America, Arlington National Cemetery, Memorial Day, Military, Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier on May 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
New Albany In The News
Posted in Ohio, Politics, tagged 2010 Ohio Governor's Race, John Kasich, New Albany, Ohio, Politics, Ted Strickland on May 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Richard called my attention to this piece in today’s New York Times, which carries a New Albany, Ohio dateline. The reporter was in Ohio to report on the governor’s race between incumbent Ted Strickland and challenger John Kasich, and was here in New Albany because Governor Strickland came by to cut the ribbon on a [...]
Morning Watering, Afternoon Weeding
Posted in Family, tagged Flowers, Gardening, house and grounds, spring on May 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Memorial Day weekend is here, and the hot weather has come with it. Today the forecast is for a high temperature around 90 degrees. Yesterday I did some weeding during the afternoon and I noticed that the beds were a bit dry. This morning, after Penny and I took our morning walk but before the [...]
Goodbye, Man
Posted in America, Movies, tagged America, Blue Velvet, Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider, Frank Booth, Hoosiers, Movies, Speed, Waterworld on May 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Dennis Hopper is dead. Best known for his role as Billy, the leather-fringed drug-added biker in Easy Rider — who seemingly said “man” after every phrase — he was an actor with a knack for creating highly memorable, out-of-the-mainstream characters. Hopper was excellent as the photographer in Apocalypse Now, as the sympathetic alcoholic basketball-obsessed assistant [...]
The Fez
Posted in Family, tagged Akron, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Family, Fez, Freemasons, Masons, National Treasure, Tadmor Shrine on May 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
On Mother’s Day we had the family over, and Mom brought over a surprise for me: Grampa Neal’s fez from the Tadmor Shrine in Akron, Ohio. The fez is an evocative item; you feel a connection when you hold something that you know another person once wore. This fez is a sturdy piece of work, [...]
Wingtips On The Beach
Posted in Environment, Humor, Politics, tagged Environment, Environmental, Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill, Humor, Politics, President Nixon, President Obama on May 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The picture of President Obama, wearing dress slacks, a white shirt, and dark shoes as he “checked for tar balls” on a Louisiana beach, gave me an unexpected chuckle. I suppose the White House wanted to have a photo op that conveyed in some visible way the President’s concern about the oil spill, but why [...]
The Competence Question
Posted in America, Politics, tagged America, Gulf Of Mexico, Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill, Hurricane Katrina, Peggy Noonan, Politics, President Obama on May 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Peggy Noonan’s column today argues that the oil spill disaster raises serious questions about the Obama Administration’s assumed competence. I’m not sure that I agree with the notion that people are concluding that the President and his team are incompetent, but I do think the implicit message of the oil spill and its aftermath undercuts [...]
The American Worker, The Public Art, And The Cleveland Fed
Posted in Art, Ohio, tagged Art, Cleveland, Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Ohio, Soviet Realism Art in America on May 27, 2010 | 1 Comment »
I was up in Cleveland yesterday and walked past the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, which was built in 1922. It features a large, black, metal statue of what appears to be a seated worker, muscles bulging and torso bared, holding a large hammer. (I say appears to be a worker because it could be [...]
A Tough Assignment
Posted in America, Work, tagged America, Cleveland, Employment Discrimination, Obesity, Physical Appearance, Unemployment, Wall Street Journal, Work on May 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The recent post about discrimination against unattractive people reminded me of one of my toughest journalism assignments. It happened in the summer of 1978, when I was an intern for the Cleveland bureau of the Wall Street Journal. The bureau chief was intrigued by an article he had read about a worker who claimed discrimination [...]
Spare The Rod, Spoil The Program
Posted in sports, tagged Big Ten, Big Ten football, college football, Michigan, Michigan football, NCAA, Rich Rodriguez, sports, University of Michigan on May 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve posted before on the potential NCAA violations committed by the Michigan football program, which initially were reported by the Detroit Free Press. Some nine months later, Michigan has now completed its “internal investigation” and admitted to certain violations. It concluded that there was a breakdown in communications and it fired one staffer and reprimanded [...]
An End To Logan’s Run, And To 24
Posted in TV, tagged 24, 24 Finale, Charles Logan, Chloe O'Brian, Jack Bauer, TV on May 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Well, I’ve watched the series finale of 24, and I think it showed why the show really needed to end. It really seemed like not much happened during the two hours. Sure, Jack got shot by Chloe, bit off the ear of Logan’s suckboy, whispered his dialogue, and resisted assassinating the Russian president, and his [...]
The Widening Ripples From The Gulf Oil Spill
Posted in America, Environment, Politics, tagged America, Environment, Gulf Of Mexico, Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill, Politics, President Obama on May 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Deepwater Horizon experienced a blowout and caught fire on April 20, 2010. (I remember the date because it is my birthday.) Since then, enormous amounts of oil have been spewing, pretty much unabated, into the Gulf of Mexico. Amazingly, more than a month after the incident we seem no closer to plugging the spigot [...]
Summer Is Here
Posted in Family, weather, tagged Family, house and grounds, New Albany, summer, weather on May 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
It feels like it, anyway. Today the temperature got to the mid-80s, and bright sunshine lit up the landscape after long, grey days of rain. I sat outside on one of our patio chairs, barefoot and in shorts and a Piton t-shirt, listening to music and reading the afternoon away. Birds were singing in the [...]
An Ugly Form Of Discrimination?
Posted in America, Work, tagged America, Employment Discrimination, Obesity, Physical Appearance, Work on May 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Washington Post has a column today about the “last bastion” of discrimination — namely, discrimination against people who are overweight or unattractive. The author, a Stanford law professor, argues that discrimination based on “irrelevant physical characteristics reinforces invidious stereotypes and undermines equal opportunity principles based on merit and performance.” She advocates for a law [...]
