Alternate title: Unsigned, Sealed, Delivered This item was updated November 2020 and again in the summer of 2025. I use social media, including Facebook, to stimulate interest in this web site, richardbarron.net. The biggest reason social media is popular in the first place is that it gives Everyman a web presence, while at the same…
Continue reading →This was my column for October 10, 2020 Journalists are a nosy bunch, and one of my earliest nosy journalist experiences was listening to the police scanner in the newsroom. I wrote a bit about it previously, but today there are a couple of wrinkles in it. Some of the agencies in our area have…
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Most of my work as a journalist has returned. School is back in session, as are athletics, though both have faced fits and starts as the pandemic spreads. Our young photographer/writer friend Mackenzee came by my office last week after I offered to lend her my copies of Ansel Adams’ The Camera, The Negative, and…
Continue reading →Note: I have sat on this piece for nearly a year now, and in that time the entire social and romantic scene has change fundamentally because of the coronavirus pandemic. If I were single, I would have no idea how to attempt to hook up, since I don’t want to spread The Rona. Maybe The…
Continue reading →A disturbing trend in the news and on social media is to crucify someone for their long-ago misdeeds, especially if those deeds were in the bullseye of whatever is trendy to take offense about. The message is clear: you have never been allowed to make mistakes, you are not allowed to grow and mature, and…
Continue reading →It’s not exactly a paradox, and it’s not exactly ironic, but it is frustrating. How do I justify my love of exploration and photography in spectacular places like Antelope Canyon, Arches National Park, Yosemite, and White Sands, yet still feel contempt for the way these places have become desperately overcrowded? Part of my problem with…
Continue reading →I’m not pushing this one to social media for inobvious, murky reasons. I read, and I blew. My sister says she despises the phrase “these uncertain times” and the word “unprecedented.” Newspapers struggle to survive, and soon we will get all our news from Snapchat. All reporters will look like puppies and baby deer. A…
Continue reading →My wife Abby and I got our hair cut today. I gave her a lift into town at lunch time. When she was done, our haircut professional, Layce, cut my hair. On the way out of the house, Abby and I grabbed the mail, which included a small padded envelope. When we saw it was…
Continue reading →For much of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic crisis, I have been thinking even more than usual about human immunology. I have, over the years, read with fascination about smallpox, polio, plague, ebola, hantavirus, dengue fever, malaria, Spanish flu, tuberculosis, and on and on. Along comes coronavirus in an age in which we should be able…
Continue reading →During the recent months of the coronavirus pandemic, we have seen an increasing number of social media posts claiming that requirements to wear a mask in public to help reduce contagion are a violation of our Constitutional rights. It got me thinking about a few years ago when I was watching a prepper’s YouTube channel….
Continue reading →This was my column for July 2, 2020 I read a comment on social media recently that said, “XX new coronavirus cases. It isn’t time to panic yet.” Fun fact: panic is never the correct response. Action is. Panic is what led many in our community and our nation to hoard toilet paper. So, no….
Continue reading →At a Juneteenth celebration Saturday, I interviewed a few people about how Donald Trump’s handling of racial issues would affect how they will vote. They all said they were already going to vote against Trump, but there was no shortage of criticism of him. After talking to one person who repeatedly called him a racist,…
Continue reading →I had a rather remarkable weekend, connected to the Black Lives Matter movement and a rally in our hometown, Ada, Oklahoma. It really kicked off late Friday morning when got a report that some camo-wearing redneck-looking men were hanging out downtown, which fit the social media rhetoric about agitators and radicals bussing in protesters. I…
Continue reading →Here’s a piece of good news: I recently donated blood at the Oklahoma Blood Institute, and they will test it for coronavirus antibodies. My first -blush guest? Yes, based on my sickness in February. Sure, I could high-five myself into a sprained rectum, but the truth is that disease moves in mysterious way. If I…
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I was recently honored to once again help jury some East Central University Mass Communications students’ senior presentations, specifically those students who emphasized visuals like photography, graphic arts and design. It got me thinking about my college days and earlier, and about what I imagined I wanted to be as an adult – “what…
Continue reading →“Everybody in this town knows you, and knows who you are and what you do.” The 2020 coronavirus crisis has had a crippling impact on the entire world. Entire industries have collapsed. One that comes to mind is the airline industry. Travel has plummeted beyond crisis levels. Some airlines have parked 95% of their fleets,…
Continue reading →There is an effort underway to reopen the world after shutting everything down due to the pandemic. Is this going to work? I’ve been mute recently. I encourage my friend Mac to write more on her blog, but at the same time, I don’t. Maybe I’m discouraged. Abby had a couple of dangerous health scares…
Continue reading →I’ve never hated hand sanitizer more. My mental health has been contaminated by the pandemic. In my head, everything is “covid.” Did you try the new covid oranges? Would you like covids with that? Look Hawken, that covid tree is covering the ground with covids. The covids are in bloom this time of year. Who’s…
Continue reading →We have all faced stress in our lives. My sister Nicole, for example, lost almost everything she owned when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans. She seemed to handle it well, and bounced back to be the first to rebuild in her neighborhood, but I know it must have taken an emotional toll beneath the surface….
Continue reading →I am not firstly a political writer, but sometimes I fee I must speak my mind about politics. One meme that made the rounds this week is about candy (in this case Skittles, a kind of jellybean)… This is what we call in the real world a false equivalence. It implies that you are willing…
Continue reading →In the current pandemic climate, we are constantly hearing about shortages, mostly on social media. There is a scene in the not-very-good 1965 epic The Battle of Bulge in which a German tank commander, played by Robert Shaw, speaks to his general. “General, do you know what this is? It is a chocolate cake. If…
Continue reading →I have gone back and forth about this issue as more information becomes available about this disease. At first I thought I’d had it. Then a blood test indicated I did not have antibodies to it. But the news is very complex, and many of those who had the disease do not show antibodies to…
Continue reading →I keep hearing about various organizations and companies make stuff like photographs of the cosmos or music files free while we are all hunkered down in our obedience caves. Wow. Did we really need a jump start on being spoon-fed entertainment through the internet? My wife and I already have thousands of songs, movies, apps,…
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As someone who’s had his name in print thousands of times over the years, and as someone who has always made an effort to curate something of a creative legacy, I believe it might be more important than ever to try to express our thoughts with pen and paper. I know I’ve said this before,…
Continue reading →In the midst of this pandemic , I heard from panic-stricken social medianites that potatoes were sold out everywhere. This did not encourage me to panic-buy potatoes, but it did remind me how much Abby and I love these nutritious tubers. So I went to the store to find them plentiful and cheap, and bought…
Continue reading →I was feeling pretty grim for much of the day, weirdly motivated by caution and advice to keep my distance from my fellow humans, worried more about the social and economic consequences of our situation. When I got home, Abby sneezed, reminding me that we both were aware that the weeds in the yard have…
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“No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and emotions shared by all.” ~Albert Camus, The Plague I miss my indulgences. I want to get back to my self pity. I want to walk the wolfhound and think sweetly about my napping wife, or hear a song on my phone…
Continue reading →Nobody wants to talk about or even say this: some generations of human beings have to accept that some of us have to get sick and die to ensure the survival of the human race. The survival strategies of every species are never meant to ensure the survival of every individual. The concept is called…
Continue reading →What can you do to stay healthy in this crisis? Well, first, get healthy. Why is everyone so scared of getting sick from a pandemic virus, but those same people make no effort to actually be healthy? They don’t eat right, they don’t exercise, they don’t control their blood pressure, they don’t take care of…
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When I was young, I thought I wanted to write novels and short stories for a living. I imagined, as young people sometimes do, that it would be easy and that everything I wrote was solid gold. In reality, I penned a quippy, smart-assy journal that often ignored or missed the mark, and when I…
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