"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
My sister Susan was born on the 4th of April, 1948, a year and a half after I came into the world. That’s us playing in the front yard of our grandparents’ home in Jackson, Missouri, some time in the early 1950s. That old photo illustrates our relationship as children: although we lived together, sometimes […]
There are a few small car shows in town during the hot months, but the big three in southern Arizona happen between October and February. The season kicked off yesterday with the annual Tucson Classics Car Show at the Gregory School. Next up: the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction in Scottsdale and the Collector Car Show on the golf course […]
“It wasn’t for trash, my bookshelves would be mostly empty.” —Paul Woodford, unpublished memoir The Great Passage by Shion Miura Clearly, I’ve been reading too many mysteries and thrillers, where every new object or action introduced into the story comes back later in some significant way. In real life … and Japanese novels … the […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. Many schools and school districts in the United States have adopted procedures to follow when parents or community members demand the removal of books from classrooms, school libraries, and reading lists. Challenged books are reviewed by committees, which recommend retention, removal, […]
This is our newest family member, Mr. B, riding home with us yesterday. Mr. B is a 9-year-old brindle dachshund. We think he’s a standard, somewhat on the smallish side but in any case considerably taller and longer than our mini, Maxie. We were gutted when Schatzi died, but after a while started thinking about […]
We have Throwback Thursdays and Follow Fridays, so why not Catch-Up Wednesdays? Gosh knows I have some catching up to do. Last week’s visitors, Terry and Judy, motored up to Phoenix for InterAmericas Hash and we had a quiet weekend to ourselves. Monday our friend Angie, also a hasher, came down after InterAmericas to spend a few […]
As Trump and his court crank up the volume of their attacks on “fake news,” their actual agenda is increasingly clear: they want news that makes Trump look bad suppressed, possibly even outlawed, like they do for dictators and royalty in other countries.
A year after 9/11, the Justice Department obtained video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting Las Vegas casinos. Local authorities were informed, but no alert was issued because the casinos didn’t want tourists scared away. I blogged about it at the time, and wondered afterward why such an obvious target for terrorism had never been attacked.