While I was placing a dish into the sink this morning, the Cold War crossed my mind. Maybe the radio was on and influenced my stream of consciousness, but odds are that it was random. My synapses seem to be firing in random order these days ( Read more... )

I never knew my grandmother. There was a woman in my younger life, whom we kids knew only as "gramma," but we were told rather early on that she was not the woman who gave birth to my mother. She was a nice old lady, who apparently was a saint for marrying and putting up with my grandpa. He was a drunk, and she was the warm face of our grandparents ( Read more... )

Paul Krugman made an interesting post to his blog yesterday, in which he cited a portion of Abraham Lincoln's 1860 Cooper Union Address. It's usually hard for me to sit and read a whole transcript like this, but I got partway through it, and couldn't stop. I noticed too many things that just haven't changed in 147 years. I mean, I'd be interested ( Read more... )

I was thinking, this morning, that the hardest concept I'll ever have to teach my kids is "and where does it end?" For example, you do something greedy, you effect someone's life negatively, and often they'll do something equally nasty in return, or perhaps you've just taught an onlooker that they can get away with it too...where does it end ( Read more... )

Almost half the day was gone before I realized it was September 11.