For the past four months, I have been the drummer of a recently-formed jazz trio. We call ourselves The ViolinCellulites (or Cellulites for short) because the leader plays — you guessed it — the cello. Our aim is to breathe new life into those old jazz standards.
We rehearse twice a week as my black Lab guide dog Heath sleeps in a corner, occasionally getting up to sniff for crumbs, poke the cellist’s bow with his nose, or weave between…..
In late January, 1973, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion through the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, resulting in endless acrimony that has settled into predictable channels.
Once Roe is overturned, each state will be able to decide how they want to address abortion. Some will make it illegal; some will mandate varying degrees of restrictions; and a few will maintain the status quo.
According to friends who attended college in the 1950s and 1960s, wealthy women wanting abortions…..
President Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget recently ordered all federal agencies to end sensitivity trainings that cover topics related to white privilege and critical race theory, arguing that these concepts are propaganda that divide. He later tweeted that critical race theory “was a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue.”
While this is another example of President Trump trying to persuade through bullying, most people view mandatory sensitivity training as punishment. Even the term “sensitivity” causes…..
In the Harry Potter series, Vernon Dursley, Harry Potter’s abusive uncle, was the director of Grunnings, an organization that manufactured and sold drills.
We don’t learn much about Vernon’s managerial style. In the first book of the series, J.K. Rowling wrote that he shouted at people and made many important telephone calls. At the beginning of the series’ second book, she recounted how Mr. Dursley coached his wife and son about how to flatter a business client while bullying his…..
so many enemies
Socialists and Chinese and shithole countries Antifa and immigrants Progressives and conservatives and takers Black Lives Matter and athletes and artists
So many enemies…
Pelosi and AOC and crooked Hillary and nasty women Abortionists and secular humanists and the queers Activists for the crippled and climate change wackos Muslims and cancel culturists and academic snobs— Media moguls and PC corporate chiefs.
Those upities who dare to dream While disagreeing with my stable genius.
Did you know that Nazi leaders used recommendations from Ivy League eugenicists and laws passed by southern United States politicians as the basis for their actions against Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, people with disabilities, and others they deemed subhuman?
In Chapter Eight of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents, (Random House, 2020), the author wrote about how German conservatives supported Adolf Hitler, a novice politician, thinking they could control him. She stated that the Fuhrer sold himself as…..
As we in the United States approach the five-month anniversary of the COVID-19 invasion, we are jogging along two rapidly separating paths.
People populating the first path are adjusting to working from home buoyed by technology while people on the other path are either unemployed or are working service or manufacturing jobs with other people surrounding them, making them more susceptible to the virus. Both groups struggle to balance family and work, but it is much easier for people on…..
While running a strategic planning session at the University of Michigan in the early 1990s, I became disoriented as I wandered from room to room monitoring the discussions of two groups. I stood there, my hand absently grazing the wall, when I happened to find the name of the room in braille about five feet up on the wall to the left of the door.
“This braille label wouldn’t be here pre-ADA,” I thought to myself. “Now I won’t have…..
An abridged transcript of my second coaching session with President Trump. (1)
Peter Altschul (PA): Mr. President. What a surprise.
President Trump (PT): I remember our first worthless session, Pipsqueak Pete. You gave me terrible advice.
PA: So why are you here?
PT: To shut up Jumpy Jared, Grouchy Grassley, and the other losers.
PA: What do they want?
PT: They want me to be less hostile. They say I’ll get more votes that way.
PA: What do you…..
Several years ago, my family and I spent the fourth of July weekend at a time-share near Branson, Missouri. On the way there, we stopped at Lamberts, a restaurant where servers hurl rolls at customers) and serve large amounts of greasy, Southern food. While waiting for our order, Louis, my then fourteen-year-old stepson, announced that he was all for women being treated the same as men but–
Annoyed, I tuned out. I’ve heard variants of this phrase coming out of…..
Breaking Barriers - Working and Loving While Blind