December 13th, 2016 | Architecture and Design, Europe, Family, Friends, General, Holidays, Matters of the Spirit, Memory, Politics, Travel, United States
Dearest all, I made the pilgrimage on my own, from our moorage on the Danube in Passau, Germany, up the Wallfahrtsstiege, the 321 steps to the Mariahilf. I counted off the Stations of the Cross and contemplated the gifts people had left, pleas for help and...
November 9th, 2016 | General, Politics, Popular Culture, social media, Society at Large
When I went to bed, North Carolina had already fallen and I knew the nightmare was about to descend. When I awoke, I watched the numbers on my clock flip toward 6:15 when the radio would click on with the news on WYPR. And it did. And three or four words in, I heard...
July 5th, 2016 | Friends, General, Politics, social media
It is July and Cleveland is battening down the hatches in anticipation of Tornado Trump. The Drumpf has been sitting pretty as “presumptive nominee” since early May and Ted Cruz’s disappearance after the Indiana primary. Hillary could not rest easy, as it were, until...
March 7th, 2016 | Education, General, Memory, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large, Women
It was August 13, 2015, exactly six months and twenty-one days ago as I write this, that I published my anxiety about the campaign of Donald J. Trump for the Republican nomination for President of the United States of America. I was told not to worry, that he was a...
August 13th, 2015 | General, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large, Women
I can’t get him off my mind. Normally I spend precisely none of my time thinking about him, watching his television shows or envying him his wealth. He’s bumptious and loud, though, someone more skilled in getting attention than a spoiled toddler in a toy store and...
May 29th, 2015 | Europe, Genealogy, General, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large, Travel
Everyone has the right to live by the River Vilnelė, and the River Vilnelė has the right to flow by everyone. Everyone has the right to hot water, heating in winter and a tiled roof. Everyone has the right to die, but this is not an obligation. Everyone has the right...