JACK'S BLOG
|
|
11/4/2021 2 Comments What is your addiction?Watching Dopesick starring Michael Keaton on Hulu got me to thinking. I’ve felt the pangs of addiction at one time or another during my life. Haven’t you? No, not nearly as compelling as addiction to drugs or alcohol. Honestly, I've avoided those for fear of becoming addicted. Sadly, Dopesick tells the story of addiction promoted by a pharmaceutical manufacturers aided and abetted by doctors and the federal government.
2 Comments
9/30/2021 0 Comments Are you woke yet?Once upon a time, TV executives lived by the Nielsen TV Ratings. Nothing else mattered. If a show won its time slot, it survived. If it didn't, some hyper-popular show from the past like I Love Lucy or Gilligan's Island, was resurrected from the vault and substituted before viewers were tempted to spin the dial and find something to watch on a competitor's network. These days it seems that shows will be aired regardless of audience approval until we knuckle-draggers learn to love what the networks are offering. Aren't they aware that We the People now have options?
Have you ever listened to Monday-morning quarterbacks discussing the big game from the day before. Passionate, aren't they? It's almost as though they are team owners lamenting or celebrating the results, speculating on countless whatifs. Politics is a lot like that, isn't it? Well, with one difference. We the People are the owners and everybody is losing. Seriously folks, if you want to argue in support of President Biden, knock yourself out. I will allow any comment so long as it is an affirmative argument in support. I won't waste my time nor my readers posting complaints about President Trump. That train has left the station and we are living with the consequences of being governed by this man. We need to keep our eye on the ball.
Should gun control advocates be hailing the rapid spread of Constitutional Carry laws rather than fearing them? Sometimes giving people what they want is a great way of demonstrating that what they want isn't a good thing. For example, how many of us were given our first cigarette by a parent? Oh, how grown up we felt until we took that first drag. After several minutes of coughing and gagging and maybe even puking, we swore off of them, possibly making good on our oaths for life. And look at the British who voted for a socialist government immediately following WWII and then quickly voted it out after living with socialism for a brief period. So now we have Constitutional Carry. It just became law here in Texas. Maybe it will be fine. Maybe not.
Divine retribution. Karma. Comeuppance. Call it what you will. If you believe this is a strange question for a storyteller to ask, you may not have been paying attention. All stories, even fiction, deal with questions of morality. Indeed, westerns and science fiction are the paradigm of morality plays. So, let’s dive in and ask, do you believe in ultimate justice? I do. My belief helps me cope with the never ending litany of injustice that I see in life. I’ve lived almost seventy-eight years in which I’ve come to learn what momma meant when she said, “Life isn’t fair.” No, it isn’t, is it?
Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky“...massive works of the intellect do not spring from the abstract workings of the brain and the imagination; they are deeply rooted in the personality.” This is the core theme of Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky, by Paul Johnson. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Shelly, Karl Marx, Henrik Ibsen, Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Bertolt Brecht, Bertrand Russel, Jean-Paul Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz, and Lillian Hellman are among the revolutionary thinkers who have shaped the past 250 years of Western Civilization, and they are, if we are to believe the author, they were all deadbeats, philanderers, depraved, cheats, mendicants, and phonies.
5/14/2020 0 Comments Catherine the GreatHistoryIt seems that Catherine the Great is popular these days. Documentaries, feature films, and a series soon to appear on Netflix. However, I stumbled upon what is likely to be the best of them all produced in Russia. It's visually lavish and populated with excellent actors. The script is well written and more historically accurate (though not absolutely) than all the others. You'll have to read subtitles inasmuch as the actors speak in the native tongues of the characters appearing in the story; Russian, French, German, and English. This link is for the first episode only appearing on YouTube. It seems that most of the others are on YouTube or you can subscribe to Amazon Prime if you want to see the rest. (And if the budget is a problem, you might find a deal on a free week and binge watch all twelve installments)
FoodI have been away from blogging for a couple years. Sorry. There were many distractions, but I’m coming back. I will likely focus on my collected research for my novel about the Korean War. Also, I’m tempted to begin blogging about cooking. I began cooking at the age of 10 or 11 when my mother went to work for the telephone company. At first, she’d call with instructions to begin prepping food for her. In a short while, I began cooking family dinners. When I joined the Sea Scouts at age 14, I became the ship’s cook, preparing meals for 10 to 15 hungry teenagers and adult leaders in a four foot galley on a two burner propane stove. With almost 66 years experience, I have some interesting lessons and stories on the subject to share, such as my love of slow roasting. My mother-in-law was convinced that I was going to kill the family when I took over duties of cooking holiday meals. Though she and the others survived my cooking for several years thereafter, she never let go of her fear. The issue centered on my use of slow roasting.
Opinion“Global citizenship is the idea that all people have rights and civic responsibilities that come with being a member of the world, with whole-world philosophy and sensibilities, rather than as a citizen of a particular nation or place. The idea is that one’s identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: ‘humanity’. This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality.” -- Wikipedia That’s a lot of very high sounding ideals, but to truly understand it, we have to look at some real world examples.
|
More than 500 postings have accumulated since 2011. Some categories (listed below) are self explanatory, others require some explanation (see below):
CategoriesAll America Army Life Blogging Cuba Election 2012 Election 2014 Election 2016 Entrepreneurs Food Good Reads History Humor Infantry School In The News Korea Middle East Oh Dark Thirty Opinion Sea Scouts Short Story Sponsored Survey Technology Television Terrorism Today's Chuckle Veterans Vietnam Writing Explanations |
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 Jack Durish All rights reserved
|
Web Hosting by iPage
|