The story of the 2 year-old girl in Kentucky, who was shot and killed by her 5 year-old brother with a rifle he was given as a present, has been preying on my mind much of the week. I think about the little girl, I imagine that just a few days ago she was aContinue reading “On Gun Manufacturers and Criminal Prosecution”
Category Archives: General
On Slavery, Ancestry, and Richard Dawkins
For inexplicable reasons, the Sunday Telegraph decided to run a hit piece on the outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins because he’s descended from a Jamaican slave owner. In the mind of the writer of the piece for the Sunday Telegraph, apparently because a distant ancestor owned slaves Dawkins “may have inherited a ‘slave supporting’ gene.” AContinue reading “On Slavery, Ancestry, and Richard Dawkins”
On Opera and E-Mail Consternation
When it comes to the Internet, there’s only one browser for me. Opera. Yes, there are other, more popular options. Firefox. Chrome. Safari. Even Internet Explorer. But it’s Opera that I like. It works for me. It’s fast and it’s slick and it’s a power user’s browser. For the longest time, I was using OperaContinue reading “On Opera and E-Mail Consternation”
On Unfinished Tales
When last we met, slightly more than a week ago, I was ruminating on the worthy idea that Hillary Clinton would make an excellent Supreme Court justice. And, it turns out, Bill Clinton thinks the same, though he admits that it won’t happen. This is the longest I’ve gone without blogging in three years. ItContinue reading “On Unfinished Tales”
On Rethinking Some Old Star Trek
Some recent discussion on TrekBBS, specifically about the alternate possibilities Paramount considered for Star Trek: Generations, brought to mind something I wrote a decade ago (!) that reimagined Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s finale, “All Good Things…,” as a multi-generational crossover film event. In other words, what if Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Ronald D.Continue reading “On Rethinking Some Old Star Trek”
On the Way I Write
Ah, the silence. I’ve not forgotten about you all, promise. I’ve just been busy. Writing. Watching Monsterpiece Theater. Listening to old Natalie Merchant albums. Writing. But mainly writing. I can tell you that I’ve been putting together some interesting words, building interesting sentences from them, and the resulting idea structures are cool to look at.Continue reading “On the Way I Write”
On Signs of a False Spring
Today, it felt like spring. No, it wasn’t as warm as springtime often is. No, there were still mounds of snow in parking lots and a glaze of ice on the sidewalks. No, the sun was still far too low in the sky, and the clouds shifted awkwardly throughout the day. And yet! After weeksContinue reading “On Signs of a False Spring”
On Reading The Right Stuff
As mentioned a few days ago, I picked up Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff at Border’s going-out-of-business sale. I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen Philip Kaufman’s film the past twenty-five years. Fifty times? I’d almost think that was too low. One of the first CDs I bought? A recording of Holst’s “TheContinue reading “On Reading The Right Stuff”
On a Malarkey of Luggage
She was surrounded by luggage. I boarded the Light Rail train at Cultural Center, after running hard for half a block in sub-freezing cold, just to be sure that I would not have to wait fifteen minutes for the next Hunt Valley train. As I surmounted the stairs into the railcar I saw a womanContinue reading “On a Malarkey of Luggage”
On a Letter to Myself, Aged Sixteen
Dear Allyn, aged sixteen, In many ways, you and I are strangers. The passage of twenty years will do that, making strangers of even the closest of friends, and you and I are closer than friends, family, even brothers. You are me at sixteen, I am you at thirty-six. Twenty years. You may find itContinue reading “On a Letter to Myself, Aged Sixteen”