Recent
No Prizes for Subtlety
It was the sort of place you wouldn’t be found dead in; the guy on the floor didn’t agree. Didn’t seem to like the floor — but it was in better shape than his face. Then someone had gone duck hunting on his chest. And either another guy was standing in front of me, or
Can We Tawk?
Comedienne Joan Rivers’ catchphrase was, ‘Can we talk?’ with all that that entails — its rhetorical nature, the Jewish thing, an implication that at least one of the parties will be better off for having done so … Like God. T’other day a priest spoke of ontological remembrance, the immediate and ongoing memory of past-present-future
Hide and See
Something lost, Dallas Willard said once, might yet be very valuable. One’s car keys for instance. He was speaking somewhat in the context of salvation, if I recall … the general point was calling something lost doesn’t mean it’s not wanted — quite the opposite. Yet it remains … until finding its way out or being found
Greater Love Blah Blah Blah
Do we doubt locals thanked them for their service? I’m not equating the two. They were wrong; glad we crushed them. Only noting it’s likely they thought as much about such things as we do, which is to say not much. German citizens who believed their leaders, loved their country, watched their sons get on
Random
The Professional
shows up every day stays on the job all day commits to the long haul sets the stakes high, sees they’re real is patient seeks order demystifies acts in the face of fear accepts no excuses plays it as it lays is prepared doesn’t show off masters technique asks for help doesn’t take failure
Fast Food Nations
Sometimes the blogs write themselves. “There’s a really strong pull … to come to different countries. There is a growing familiarity outside the United States with Mexican food.” (Fast food exec in Bloomberg, Dec. 2015) “They don’t always understand what the food is, or how to order the food, or what the ingredients are. Taco Bell takes the mystery
Ensamples
Among the worst things about The Slap is how it has fed self-righteousness in all but the two participants, and they already had it or it wldn’t have happened. But there is Solzhenitsyn, again, with the line between good and evil that cuts through every human heart, and there is Dostoevsky, always, reminding us via
Inconvenient Truth
Near the start of The Shawshank Redemption Andy Dufresne is on the witness stand, losing a battle for his life he will ultimately win. The district attorney calls “inconvenient” the inability to find the gun used in the crime. Andy has used the gun to make a hole in the river, though not to make