Vociferous Rhapsody

Over in Garfield County, Colorado – on the western edge of the state, apparently the Sheriff’s office is having a problem with men who enjoy hiking the many trails in the area, sans clothing. There are no reports of lewd behaviour, no reports of attempted rapes or violence, simply someone out enjoying nature without benefit… Continue reading Doing it Naked

Four Hundred Three happens to be the number of years that one branch of my family has been resident on the continent of North America. (Four Hundred Two years is documented for another branch). Since the late 1970’s, I’ve been smitten by the hobby of Genealogy. My mother’s father and his sister had started the… Continue reading Four Hundred and Three

From July of 1973 to April of 1981, I served proudly in the United States Navy. I went to bootcamp at Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida, and then to Radioman “A” school in Bainbridge, Maryland. From there, they sent me to a supersecret school in Northwest, Virginia. My first real tour of duty was at the Naval… Continue reading Haze Grey and Underway

When I was a kid, living in South Florida, it never crossed my mind that people lived in other places that didn’t have the wonderous bounty of delicious nature available to them. In my Grandmothers yard alone were cerenum cherries, oranges, mangos, guavas, kumquats, mulberrys and of course, my favorite of them all, avocados. You must… Continue reading Can you fall in love with a fruit?

An Abomination A few years ago, Dr. Laura Schlesinger said on her radio show that homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. A letter to her appeared on the internet a few days later: Dear Dr. Laura: Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding… Continue reading Dear Dr. Laura

A 2nd Federal appeals court has decided that a former Bush administration official is immune from prosecution over  a series of memorandums he wrote that set the United States down the road to government approved torture after then 911 attacks. John Yoo is a former deputy-attorney general, and is now a law school professor. In… Continue reading Scary Yoo

I was reading this article today about how so many recipes lie about how long it takes to prepare, especially when it comes to anything requiring browning or caramelizing onions. Most recipes seem to indicate that you can get golden brown, caramelized onions in just 10 minutes, when the truth is that it actually takes more like… Continue reading How to Brown Onions

Yesterday, in Grand Junction, Colorado, Robert Dewey walked out of a courtroom a free man after serving 18 years in prison for a crime that DNA evidence now shows he did not commit. In 2009, James Bain was freed from a Florida prison after serving 35 years in prison, a result of DNA testing of… Continue reading Our courts are broken

Imagine trying to run your family with a “Zero Tolerance” rule in effect. Even if Jr. is in bed with the measles, if he doesn’t do his chores, he’s grounded for six years. That’s “Zero Tolerance”. Sounds kind of silly, and I don’t know of any working family that actually runs this way, because no… Continue reading Zero Tolerance

An interesting article in the New York Times today  discusses an article in this months Journal of Personality and Social Psychology about why some people may be such vehement homophobes. Apparently a group of scientists have performed a study, and found scientific evidence that some homophobia is the result of repressed same-sex desire. They do go… Continue reading What if we are all wrong?

I’m somewhat chagrined to read that the State of Tennessee has pulled yet another bone-headed move, making it somewhat akin to Kansas, attempting to legislate human behaviour yet again. Like the Ostrich, sticking your head in the sand may get you the juicy worm that you’re after, but you are ignoring everything else around you,… Continue reading The Ostrich

I’m not sure where I first heard the expression “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” I don’t think any of my wise elders actually used it, although I wouldn’t have put it past my mother’s Father, he was always spouting off some proverb from one source or another. Sadly, more… Continue reading Bird in the hand