President Obama has signed an executive order creating the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and named his selections to co-chair the body, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.  The pair have already started making the rounds of the media, and I caught their interview with Judy… Read full post »

Licorice, July 7, 1996 - February 9, 2010

She came to us an eight-week puppy.  The kids, especially Neil, had been wanting a dog for years, but Risa and I felt our house was too small for a big dog, and neither of us fancied little dogs.  When we moved… Read full post »

This morning I took my daughter to SFO for her flight back to the Big Apple.  The sight of that unusually long and slow-moving line to the security checkpoint led me to ponder the question uppermost in the American mind this holiday season, viz, "What we can do to ensure our… Read full post »

My daughter Bryn is back on the Left Coast for the New Year.  Some of you have been following her adventures as a budding opera singer in NYC on her OS blog.  Well, if you live around the SF Bay Area you have two opportunities this weekend to hear her sing… Read full post »

When I was a lad, the Christmas shopping season didn't get started until the beginning of December, or at least not sooner than the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.  Things have changed to the point that these days the extended holiday season gets started even before Halloween.  Now that th… Read full post »

Flash back to October 1991.  It was my sister-in-law Kathleen on the phone.  By the time I've walked across the kitchen and turned at the dining room to where the kids are playing in the back of the house, I'm weeping, which surprises me, I hadn't expected that.  Bryn's surprised too,… Read full post »

My last role in the university theatre at Cal was as Segismundo in my classmate Tony Taccone's thesis production of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life Is a Dream (La vida es sueño).  Calderón was the great Renaissance poet of the theatre in Spain as Shakespeare was in England… Read full post »

A.  Hitler was a White Supremacist

B.  Obama = Hitler

therefore,
C.  Oh my God, Obama is a fascist communist WHITE SUPREMACIST!!!! Read full post »

It's a handy invention, the calendar. 

Next Wednesday, August 12, will be one of my favorite days of the year, the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.  On that night I love to lie flat on my back, counting the shooting stars as they streak across the night sky.  One memorable… Read full post »

Friday morning of the day that would wind up with the presentation of the Rome Free Academy Class of '63 Senior Play, I stole a bottle of Valpolicella from my father's cache in the basement, smuggled it on the bus in my bookbag and stashed it in my locker to be… Read full post »

In New York state during the '50s and '60s, every ninth grader took a class called "Citizenship Education".  My Cit Ed teacher at Holland Patent Central High School was Mr Kuchler, a decent guy and good teacher who had the unfortunate habit of using his extended middle finger rather than his… Read full post »

Tall, confident, outgoing, big smile, she breezed into the dark pub where Bay Area OSers were celebrating the first anniversary of Open Salon.

"I'm DakiniDancer,  Josie", we shook hands, then hugged, exchanged a few words, I'd already been there a couple of hours and was getting ready for the lo… Read full post »

I doubt that it was the first book I ever read, but the life story of our first president from Illinois, with a colorful illustration on each page, is one of the earliest I remember owning and reading over and over again.  Abe Lincoln was an authentic American hero in my… Read full post »

Sandra no longer sandra no longer miller Stephens and her charming husband Herb made time in their wine country weekend to hang around with Risa and me on Saturday afternoon.

Herb took some great pictures, one of which I've adopted as my new avatar, more authorial-looking I think than my or… Read full post »

This past weekend I posted a celebration of my marriage on the occasion of our anniversary.  I can't just let this piece stand alone.  There's a third coda to the story and this post is it.

Last election night, I went to bed feeling joy and pride at our country's selection… Read full post »

When Risa and I jumped the broom on the hillside above the amphitheatre in Berkeley's John Hinkel Park on the Saturday after the spring equinox in 1980, it was the third wedding for both of us.

I mean to say, it was the third wedding for the two of us, that… Read full post »

I discovered Greek mythology when I was eight.

School was a one-room building with a wood-burning stove and no plumbing, one teacher, eight grades, about a dozen students in any given year.  There was an entry hall where the firewood was stacked and where in winter we hung our coats, mitten… Read full post »

This is a response to FeatheredThing's Open Call.

Anyone who got a high school education in the U.S. has read at least a couple of poems by the good gray poet Walt Whitman, usually including "O Captain! My Captain", his elegy for Abraham Lincoln.

When I was in the army of… Read full post »

The moon is in its waxing gibbous phase as I write these words, that week between the first quarter and full when the half-moon gets a baby bump that swells perceptibly every night.  This is the moon that rises between noon and sunset so you can see her like a pale… Read full post »

Dear Mr. President,

I'm not sure that you're going to get this bipartisanship thing to work for you.

Frankly, sir, I think it's time to take the gloves off and start forcefully reminding the American people why they threw the Republicans out of power.  Last night, I saw some of your old… Read full post »

faith [ME feith, fr. OF feid, foi, fr. L fides; akin to L fidere to trust]

The most common use of the word "faith" in our times is as a synonym for "belief", specifically for religious belief.  We often find it being used to designate a system of religious beliefs or… Read full post »

Earlier this week the estimable Zumalicious put up a terrific post about the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

It was a hoot, and I thought for sure she'd get a lot of attention and a slew of responses, but it seems to have flown right under the radar, so I'm kicking it back… Read full post »

Dad was an altar boy.  If you'd known my father you might find that hard to believe.  I have a vivid memory of a dinner conversation between Dad and a devout Catholic friend of the family in which the old man contended that praying to Jesus was fine for some, but… Read full post »

Mr. President,

First let me congratulate you on your historic victory, and thank you for taking the time to hear me out.  I hope you'll consider my words carefully.  I know I'm not the only American who shares my concerns.

It's clear that you have a full plate and more with… Read full post »

bleeding edge of boom baby cry baby why maybe lonely only big family dad mad mom sad cold grandma old me skinny small can't catch a ball runner swimmer wet dreamer looks in books cooks no jock joker english major poker wager thinker drinker copout dropout biff bam uncle sam hello… Read full post »