Thousands of truckers descended upon Wheaton, Illinois this week. They came from places far and near, places like Missoula, Waco, Teaneck and Cicero. They pulled their 18-wheelers into town united in a cause, joined together with a crackling energy not often seen in this country outside of tax evasion season. They arrived to help the students of (more…)
Archive for the ‘Observations and Commentary’ Category
preparing for the future
Posted: June 25, 2012 in Humorous Bits, Observations and CommentaryTags: 2003, dance, education, humor, humour, life, The Hustle, Wheaton College
in our defense
Posted: June 13, 2012 in Humorous Bits, Observations and CommentaryTags: Cosmopolitan, humor, humour, life, men, society, war of the sexes, women
Cosmopolitan magazine recently published an online article asserting “tons of studies” have proven women are better than men at some things, specifically 12 things. Whether the 12 studies they referenced actually constitute “tons” is question for another time, one involving basic math skills. I suppose it doesn’t much matter seeing how math skills were not on their list. What is concerning is Cosmo has apparently taken the perspective that equality is no longer the issue, no longer “the cause”. What was once a noble quest has now become a full-fledged campaign to (more…)
common threads #9: gift giving
Posted: May 15, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: birth, birthday, Common Threads, gift giving, gifts, hospital, humor, humour, life, retirement, wedding
Ahhh, gift giving. The art of showing a person how you feel by negotiating the tricky minefield of buying tangible goods for them. Gift giving, in all of its manifestations, is a capitalist’s wet dream.
Gift giving comes in four flavors. Certainly multiple offshoots exist within each flavor, but when you (more…)
nothing’s cooking
Posted: May 7, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: hunger, life, Photography, poverty, society
I took this photo several years ago. While some details have changed (the abandoned diner is no longer there, for one) the underlying reality of what this illustrates remains sadly the same. You still see the disenfranchised, disposed and dispirited milling about as you drive through this section of (more…)
death and twitter
Posted: May 2, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: culture, death, Junior Seau, life, respect, society, Twitter
Today Junior Seau died. He was an ex-football star who had a distinguished 20 year career in the National Football League. Most likely he will eventually – and rightfully – get inducted into that sport’s Hall of Fame. Preliminary indications are he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 43.
Ever since Twitter burst into the collective consciousness people have used it as a vehicle to express public condolences when someone of note passes away. Today was no exception. Apparently the Twitterverse was bursting with (more…)
your genius is so amazingly brilliant
Posted: May 1, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: awesome!, Blogosphere, blogs, internet, interwebs, language, life, Mozart, praise, society
You know what’s happened, don’t you? We snatched the exclusive world of superlatives, recklessly threw it into the combustible core of the web, and watched it blow apart in a way that would have made Robert Oppenheimer proud.
As willing participants in this weird alternate universe called the Blogosphere you can’t help but notice the epidemic of exceptional praise for unexceptional performance. (To be fair it extends far beyond our little bloggy neighborhoods.) This misuse of language reaches its nasty tentacles everywhere, much like a cockroach intrusion. You only need to see one to know thousands of similar vermin (more…)
common threads #8: weaving-intertwining
Posted: April 23, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: cause and effect, Common Threads, connections, intertwining, life, mind maps, weaving
Remember when you were told as a child never to pull a loose string hanging from a sweater? Remember how you were warned if you pulled it the whole sweater would unravel? Remember how tempted you were to pull it anyway, how it pleaded to be yanked? And remember how you finally succumbed to that irresistible urge only to discover what you had been told all along was the truth? You didn’t understand the breadth of the connection between (more…)
climb
Posted: March 21, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: America, American life, climb, expectation, life, Photography, random, society, success
Welcome to your American Experience, child. It holds great promise. Enjoy yourself, but know that your life comes with my expectations. Embrace the freedom to do what you want. However, above all else remember your ultimate purpose – to (more…)
post-authentic world
Posted: March 19, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: authentic, blogging, Blogosphere, culture, internet, life, music, post-authentic world, society, Springsteen, SXSW, truth
On Saturday I watched Bruce Springsteen’s March 15th keynote address from the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas. He said a lot, but one thing in particular intrigued me.
“We live in a post-authentic world. Today, authenticity is a house of mirrors. It’s all just what you’re bringing when the lights go down.”
Contextually he was speaking about music, but the descriptor “post-authentic world” is reflective of a broader societal shift. Nowadays it is far more difficult to separate real from fake, sheen from substance. It takes work. Reality is constantly being distorted and thanks to (more…)
Trask Avenue 
shadow memories
Posted: June 26, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: 1940's, big band, life, memory, music, nostalgia, Sinatra, Three Dog Night
The elusive “they” say music is one of our strongest memory inducers. You can hear a song and be immediately transported back to a specific time and place from your life, the details of that moment as vivid as if you had just lived it. It is one of the brilliant powers of music – and one of the best. I know whenever I hear Three Dog Night’s Joy to the World I am once again in the 8th grade cafeteria where the 45 rpm single (more…)