Opinions
Dangles!
Earrings dangle. Cliff hangers dangle. A sword has been dangling by a thread over Damocles head ever since he pandered to King Dionysius in 4th Century BC – just like politicians these days. Rocky Horror lyrics wail, “I’ve got the feeling someone’s gonna be cutting the thread.” Dangles are a big part of our lives. Dangling teabags come in hundreds ...Read More
5, 4, 3 Days Left – But – Who’s Counting?
On Sunday, I did my grocery shopping during Meet the Press. I went to a market farther away and took my time driving. I strolled slowly through the produce aisles and thumped melons, tested pears for ripeness, and decided between cut celery or a stalk of celery. I pondered whether uncut celery was correctly called a bunch or a stalk. I read all the...Read More
Is It Yesterday Yet?
Where did the years go? It feels just like yesterday.Remember sizzling steak, ice cream sundaes, and drippy grilled cheese when everyone thought they were healthy? How about reading the paper filled with more words than ads, and struggling to fold the pages into a manageable size? Think about those glorious days when dessert was an essential...Read More
Living Life To The Fullest Regardless Of “Social Norm”
Like Forrest Gump said, life is definitely like a box of chocolates. That means, of course that you never know what you are going to get (that is until you bite into enough of them to make that judgment from the outside). But…Forrest Gump lived his life as if it were a never-ending bag of potato chips that he carried with him all the t...Read More
It Sucks To Be Cleveland – by Gary Chalk
I’ve got good news; and bad news. The good news: Cleveland won the NBA championship last month. The bad news: Cleveland hosts the republican national convention starting tonight. Some Cleveland residents are protesting, saying, “What did we screw up to earn this?” With the national media converging on Cleveland, locals are putting...Read More
Carbon Copies
We’ve lost a righteous man. His name was Eli Wiesel. You may know him only as the author of Night, an account of his life in Auschwitz, from the age of 14 ½ to age 16. I personally believe that he may have been a lamed vavnik. Yes, I know that am straying into dangerous territory here, but this is a legend, not religious teaching exactly. &nb...Read More
When Inspired, You Don’t Tire Easily
We recently returned from a trip to the USA during which we hired two separate vehicles. During a five-week period, we traveled over 10,000 kilometers. Initially, we went skiing in Colorado then journeyed to Cheyenne, Wyoming, Mt Rushmore, the Badlands of South Dakota, Devil’s Tower in Wyoming and traversed Montana to Yellowstone National Park. On ...Read More
What If…We Actually DID Something?
A “personal opinion?” You bet. And…one to be proud of! Garret Mathews lived in Southern West Virginia from 1972 until 1987 where he wrote feature stories and, later, columns for the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. The newspaper’s circulation area includes McDowell County, one of the poorest counties in Appalachia. Before mine mechaniz...Read More
Enter Helen: the Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman
Book by Brook Hauser. Review and commenting by Lois Rubin Gross. It started with Seventeen, the teenage girl’s bible. Each month, I would wait anxiously for the thick, glossy magazine to arrive on the magazine rack at the corner candy store. Every month I would scout the corner candy store until the thick, glossy magazine arrived on the stand. I e...Read More