"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Because we can’t be trusted to run our own lives
The payroll tax — not the income tax, but the entirely separate payroll tax on workers and employers — is what funds Social Security. When the program’s defenders say Social Security is paid for and does not contribute to the national deficit, they speak the truth. Social Security is fully funded through 2037, and a […]
Oh lord, is it that time already? First the AARP membership, then the Social Security, now Medicare. My 65th birthday is rapidly approaching, and with it the transition from Tricare (the military’s medical insurance plan for retirees) to Medicare. Last month I applied for a Medicare card from the Social Security office. Today I drove […]
Blog neglect again? By way of lame excuses, I’ve been busy with historical articles for my hashing blog and working on recipes for my cooking blog. Fat lot of good that does you, dear Paul’s Thing reader, right? I’ll try to make up for it with some random Friday observations. ——————– I may not drink […]
A friend wrote the other day and asked me if I’d ever read anything by Stuart Archer Cohen. I fear for my friend’s mind, because just two years ago … on her recommendation … I read Cohen’s The Army of the Republic and sent her a copy of my brief review, which I’ll repost here: […]
Well, that’s done. Your humble correspondent is the newest certified walking tour docent at the Pima Air & Space Museum. My certification tour yesterday went pretty well, except for the part where I blanked on who won the toss for first flight, Orville or Wilbur, but I finessed it by simply saying “they took turns” […]
Sunday morning I rode my motorcycle down to the corner cafe for breakfast, then took the twisties to the top of Mount Lemon, pretty much the only motorcycle destination in Tucson during the hot summer months. I arrived at my favorite mountaintop coffee shop at 9:30 AM only to find it still closed, but the […]
From a USA Today article published 8/9/2004: “A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department obtained video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting Las Vegas casinos but authorities never alerted the public as they discussed whether a warning might hurt tourism or increase the casinos’ legal liability, internal memos show.” I blogged about […]
Last weekend we bumped into a friend we hadn’t seen in a couple of years. She had news. R________, a guidance counselor at a local high school, was fired a couple of months ago … along with the rest of the school’s faculty and staff. And get what the school district calls this mass firing: […]