TweetMy eye fell across my blogroll — way down there on the right-hand rail, below the little box that shows my most recent Tweets — and I was thinking, “Probably time to go through that and see if anything should be removed, or added.” I do that about every five years, whether I need to […]
TweetJust a normal, quiet day — the kind I was looking forward to when I voted last year. Which is nice. But here’s some stuff to talk about… What? It’s Mardi Gras already? — So tomorrow’s Ash Wednesday. What to give up? Or maybe I should say, what else should we give up? Cayce could be […]
Tweet Well, I have some good news. I went for a midday walk today, and didn’t see any Trump campaign signs in the neighborhood. You may find that unremarkable. But you don’t know the whole story. After I came back from Memphis — we’re talking the day or so after the election — I saw […]
Tweet Ever since I got back from Memphis, I’ve been meaning to get a COVID test. I figured someone in my group of five family members — having spent about 20 hours, there and back, in a van — should do it. And I was curious about the process. So I made an appointment yesterday, […]
Tweet I’m still scrambling to catch up with my day job after having been out for three days — in Memphis for my brother-in-law’s funeral, which was on Election Day — but I thought I’d post a few scattered thoughts about this scattered election. (Even though it’s Friday evening and traditionally, no one reads blogs […]
TweetThis is just a quick note to let y’all know why you’re not seeing much from me in these last days before the most critical election of our lifetimes. My brother-in-law suddenly died in Memphis, and we’re preparing to get on the road and go there for the funeral. We haven’t been thinking about much […]
Tweet Do you have a Google search app on your phone or iPad? I do. And Google uses it to entice me to click on things. On the home page, there are all these links to things Google is convinced fascinate me. Most have something to do with the Beatles, or the Sopranos, or Key […]
TweetSeveral days back, I got an invitation to a political event from Mark Huguley, mayor of Arcadia Lakes and former top official at SLED. And I set it aside to read later, thinking maybe it would be something I’d go to. Then I received the same message again, forwarded to me by his wife Sally, […]
TweetI started putting this Open Thread together on Saturday at a Barnes & Noble in Memphis where I had gone to do some work while my wife was otherwise engaged. (Actually, she was at a soup kitchen downtown where her brother and sister-in-law volunteer, helping them out. I felt bad about not being with them, […]
Tweet We had a very brief discussion on a previous post in which some members of our commentariat speculated on what kinds of posters other members had on their bedroom walls when they were kids. I decided to share what I put on the walls of some of my many bedrooms (as a Navy brat, I moved […]
TweetIt’s really something when someone has a idea he really believes in, and never, ever gives up. Remember Temple Ligon’s plan to build a convention center on a bridge across the Congaree? He’ll be talking about The Bridge again tonight, more than 30 years after he first proposed it: Tomorrow night, Friday, beginning at 6:00 pm at […]
TweetI tend to have little patience with populists who rant about corporations, from Bernie Sanders to Tucker Carlson. But you know that thing Fitzgerald said about “he test of a first-rate intelligence (being) the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time?” Well, personally, in my newspaper life, I never saw much […]
Tweet I’ve called your attention before to the hilarious Twitter feed Donaeld The Unready, the chronicles of a king from the era of “The Last Kingdom” and “Vikings” who goes about blustering and promising to “Make Mercia Great Again!” Sample recent Tweet: Scribes should concentrate on Great Living Kings, not loser dead ones. And scribe the […]
TweetI ran up to Lancaster yesterday to catch James Smith’s announcement of Mandy Powers Norrell becoming his running mate (an excellent choice, by the way — I’ll post video later). One of the highlights of the day was seeing John Spratt, whom I hadn’t seen in years. So I looked at this Tweet from the […]
Tweet Not all that much going on: Senate passes spending bill, clearing way to end shutdown — For three week. Whoopee. Lindsey Graham sent out a release encased in the usual exclamation points: “! Graham Votes To End Government Shutdown !” But as he acknowledged, this is no win for the country. Personally, I think I’d […]
TweetFor the first time probably in decades, I actually saw two movies on the big screen in one weekend. Seriously, I can’t remember doing that since I was the reviewer for The Jackson Sun back in the ’70s and used to spend my weekends in Memphis seeing the new releases before they came up the road […]
TweetIn his latest column, George Will makes similar points to ones I made in my last post, about our national orgy of conspicuous consumption. (And thank you, Thorstein Veblen! I’ve always thought that was a great term — and not just because of the alliteration.) He concludes it thusly: In any American city large enough to […]
Tweet I’m not saying there’s a connection to Trump getting elected last week. I don’t think this is actually happening because the coolest people refuse to stay on such a planet. But it would be nice to have a little break from horrible news. First, there was Leonard Cohen — whom I recognize as one of “the […]
TweetHaving just wrestled with the new definitions of an old word, “reporter,” here are some images from the very start of my newspaper career, so very long ago. When reporters were reporters. After I dug out those pictures from 1978 to go with this post, I started poring through some old negatives, thinking yet again about digitizing […]
TweetWhen I was a young and inexperienced reporter at The Jackson Sun in 1978, I spent a few days covering Roger Murray, who was seeking the Democratic nomination for governor of Tennessee. It was an immersive experience, one that would seem quite alien to reporters today. I went on the road with him for several days as […]