Insane Earthlings

Just when the last spark of hope seems to be surrendering to lack of oxygen, a few words can gently blow in through the ethernet, scrawled in shaky ink and offer a breathe that whispers the gray from it's surface and the heat glows visible for a moment.  When I began writing blog posts I had no plan. I was just putting my thoughts on glass and sending them to the vague world of the internet. More people have read what I have written than I ever imagined. My post about my experience as a student in a class about the Vietnam War was published in a magazine called The Veteran. And just when I needed it most, the editor of that magazine sent me this note from a reader: And on Veteran's Day, I attended a breakfast talk delivered by a co-worker at an event called Creative Mornings. She gave a powerful multimedia performance of imagery, acting, and speaking that moved a crowd of a few hundred. There is power in creating something. So the fact that I created something tha...

Hillary Clinton suffered a disadvantage over the last several months. It’s an advantage that Barack Obama enjoyed during both of his Presidential campaigns. My mother was here, on this earth, voicing her advocacy for her candidate. If you ever met my mother, you would know that having her in your corner was a competitive advantage that belied her petite stature. By this point my mother would have already voted. But had she been here among us who are still confined to this realm, she would have been spending the last several months reminding everyone how important it is to elect Hillary Clinton. My mother was not a partisan loyalist. She always voted for the candidate that she felt was the nicest, had the best policies for families, and acted in a dignified manner.   And she was not always vocal about her choices. But as she grew older, and her family grew to include grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she began to speak out for the candidates she believed would help shape a...

The assignment from my first day of Freshman Composition was so easy I couldn’t believe it. Ha! This was college? I thought college was supposed to be difficult. The teacher had said to write a paragraph. Paragraphs were my strength. Just write five or six sentences, throw in some big words, and maybe even get fancy with some poetic devices, instant B+. And even more unbelievable she had said we could write about any topic. In high school I had to fight tooth and nail with my teacher for her to allow me to write my research paper on American poets about Jim Morrison.   I was so excited. College was way better than high school. I went back to my room and quickly dispatched with scrawling out several sentences comparing eighties heavy metal to protest songs from the sixties. I was writing about Rock and Roll and the professor was going to be blown away. Hell, since I would turn it in on time, it would be an easy A! I eagerly delivered it to her mailbox. Everyone had al...