It is 6 AM. The house is dark and quiet. I am soaking in the sweet, brief solitude. Soon the din and stir of the crowd will rule the house. A cold front came in yesterday and cooled down our Texas autumn heat wave. The red oak in my backyard still isn’t red. The cool…
Tag: Culture
Cooked and Carved
When Wayne got home from work, he carved the turkeys, and I made the gravy. We put it all in the fridge for tomorrow.
Deconstructionism, Salt, and Sugar
Rockwell’s “Thanksgiving” Deconstructionism dismisses the value of anything it touches–in literature or culture. It dismantles, even splinters the structure itself, questioning the blueprint of the framework in the first place. Ken, in a recent post of mine, Narcissism, on the death of ceremony, made an astute comment that the philosophy of deconstructionism is one of the root causes of the rejection of…
The Juice and Justice
Why am I writing about OJ Simpson? Because he is in the news again. Who cares? I do. Because I am profoundly interested in justice and the ramification of injustice in our society. And I believe the American culture shapes our views of justice–some of them are correct, almost innate, and others are incorrect–the result of a society…
haiku: meetings all day long
there is just something about a meeting that lasts all day that’s stifling. ************************* I wanted to jump out the window and join the free people outside.
‘I’m Nobody. Who are You?’
Britney Spears, uh, no uh, Lindsay Lohan, uh, no uh, Paris Hilton, uh… I’m Nobody. Who are You? by Emily Dickinson I’m nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there’s a pair of us–don’t tell! They’d banish us you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog To tell your name…
Escapism
Last night we picked up the guest speaker for our banquet with a group of special friends and went to a restaurant near the hotel. We celebrated my birthday a day late. Wayne read that Coal Vine’s had received great reviews, so we tried it. I really liked the place. It is an upscale, yet…
More on Death of Ceremony
Yesterday I wrote about the death of ceremony in American culture in my post titled, Narcissism. I ran across this article shortly afterward which is a small example of the death of ceremony in our culture. Take a look.
Narcissism
Every American should read Bill Bennett’s book, “The Death of Outrage.” Bennett, an American hero in my eyes, wrote some years ago with clarity and conviction about the lack of public outrage surrounding Bill Clinton’s sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky. In case you haven’t read the book, let me assure you, it is not outdated. Bennett…
Passion
In Ethiopia with Two Ethiopian Jewesses My sister inadvertently paid me a kind compliment the other day. In an email, she was discussing the challenges of parenting. She wrote that it suddenly dawned on her that her young son is much like me: very passionate about life. That her son’s zest for living is offering she and her husband plenty of opportunities to…
Bonnie Saul Wilks 