President Trump and French President Macron had a meeting and a joint press conference followed by this presidency’s first state dinner. That is such a normal thing that it’s barely worth a comment. Two heads of state get together, discuss things, tell the press about it and have a fancy party. It happens all the…
I’ve always had a bit of a problem separating things like music by genres. In a recent piece I wrote, I made the statement, “I tend to think of all worthwhile American music as being a type of blues.”* I knew when I typed it that the statement would bother some people. People have a…
After cataloging my Blues collection, I decided to do something small, Reggae. I believe Reggae is the smallest segment of my collection that I will bother separating. I almost didn’t. I almost just lumped it in with Folk, but most people, in America at least, think of American Folk music when they hear Folk, so…
I first read A Wrinkle In Time when I was a kid, probably ten or eleven years old. I liked it. When I saw they had made a movie, I was curious. I reread the book. I still liked it. Then, I started seeing the reviews of the movie. They are mostly unkind. It has…
On the morning of March 14, 2018, students all over the country participated in a school walkout to protest gun violence and to honor the seventeen children killed in Parkland, FL. In a lot of ways, this was inspiring, seeing thousands of kids believe in a cause and actually try to do something about it….
Your One & Only is the debut novel by Adrianne Finlay. It was released on February 6, 2018. It’s young adult, post-apocalyptic sci-fi. I have to say the standard shpiel about spoilers, so in this opening paragraph I’ll just say that I really liked it. I recommend the book, five stars, etc. If you’re worried…
A long time ago, I wrote this piece about collecting classical music. It was so long ago that it was on a different blog. I’m still working on the project of cataloging my record collection. After I finished classical, I moved on to blues. It’s taken me a while to get everything in, but now…
The other day, I ran across this headline in The Onion: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.” Of course, the story is about a mass shooting. This story originally ran almost four years ago, but they repost it every time it’s appropriate. I feel like I see it at…
In the Republic, Plato sets out to answer the question, “What is justice?” Along the way, Socrates* and his interlocutors raise the question of who leads the more pleasant life, the just or the unjust. They bring it to extremes. They assume that the unjust person gets away with it, so to speak. People don’t…
As a white person, I feel like any opinions I voice on race need to be heavily discounted. As a white person, I’m not sure I have the right to say much of anything at all. The thing is, because of the social circles I’m in and because one of my jobs is at Capital…
