The entirety of mainstream politics and media in America continues to refer to certain terrorists throughout the world as “Radical Islamists” or “Islamic Fundamentalists,” as if to intellectually divorce Islam from the terror perpetrated in its name. It is not the responsibility of the United States and its military or intelligence community to apprehend fundamental…
Continue reading →This morning Abby and I slept in, and as the morning went by, I found myself dreaming rather extensively about Jorja Fox, the actress who played Sarah Sidle on CBS’s CSI for seven seasons. Abby was disappointed to see the actress and the character leave the show, and with the departure of two additional core…
Continue reading →No sooner had I read on Wil C. Fry’s blog that he and his wife Marline were celebrating birthdays than I saw them both, at last night’s Konawa vs Wayne football game and homecoming coronation. They were happy to see me, as I was them, but we were all busy, and didn’t really get the…
Continue reading →This bizarre image is actually Abby doing one of her regular exercises, which therapists and trainers call “bridges,” but which Abby knows by the nickname “Chihuahuas.” Normally the move is performed by laying on the back and placing a weight on the abdomen, then bridging up, holding, and lowering for a set number of times,…
Continue reading →Here’s my story from 9/11/01, the day of the terrorist attacks: I was at Ada Junior High early, taking a picture of a student and the teacher who saved his life, which we were trying to get into the paper that morning. I overheard some chatter about a plane crash in New York City, and…
Continue reading →Background information: Dorothy Milligan was Abby’s mother-in-law for 23 years while Abby was married to Paul Milligan, the youngest of three brothers. He died in 1992. In spite of the fact that Dorothy is not technically related to us biologically (except that Abby’s daughter Chele is Dorothy’s granddaughter), we still regard her as our mother-in-law,…
Continue reading →When I was outside today, I could feel it: September. The air was different. It was as if the sun were struggling to be hot, but failing. By now the spiders are big, the pond is low, the baby rabbits have all grown up. Summer is ending.
Continue reading →For those of you who thought that our Norman gang cranking out a list of baby names that start with “C” was funny, here is the actual list… Casper, Carmen, Caper, Canter, Chai, Covey, Colorado, Cumin, Caledonia, Cayenne, Cisco, Cecelia, Calypso, Cyrus, Ciattle, Clooney, Clara, Charlene, Cloud, Chaz, Cobalt, Conifer, Cale, Cane, Chipotle, Cole, Coco,…
Continue reading →As Gustav slowly churns to our east, the weather here has been breezy, cloudy, occasionally rainy, and a little mysterious-looking. As evening fell, I walked around outside and watched the sky change. Low clouds streaked by from northeast to southwest, and high clouds caught the last light, as in this image of one of the…
Continue reading →It must be very reassuing to believe in a life after death. I don’t believe in life after death because I don’t believe in death. Death itself is a transformation. Now I am a human. Tomorrow I may be dust. But all that I am remains. Maybe I am the sand in the desert. Maybe…
Continue reading →“How come life gets so sh*tty sometimes? You just don’t know if you can hold on any longer. I just want to close the garage door in my car and have a nap.” -H For every human there are approximately 1,000,000 ants. Chances that an American cannot name a single right protected by the Bill…
Continue reading →Recently an internet acquaintance got agitated with me on a forum thread about Mormon sex. The thread dealt with some of the myths regarding Mormon customs and practices. The person who started the thread ended his entry with, “P.S. Do you take your special underoos off when you get freaky? Or is their a special…
Continue reading →In college I had a roommate one semester who talked in his sleep almost every night. Being a night crawler, I heard most of it, and wrote down the good ones: “Space Monk, wanna sharpen my knife?” “I said I want some pie!” “Put a little foam on it so the kids can play.” “Bill,…
Continue reading →So the other day I was trying to rattle off a list of all the famous people I have met. I was really struggling to think of their names, and whether or not they were really famous. Charles Kuralt, Wilford Brimley, Ralph Nader, Erin Moriarty, Reba McEntire, Fran Tarkenton, Brian Bosworth, Jeremy Shockey, Larry Linville,…
Continue reading →Sometimes I listen to Christian pop music. I like it because in some important ways, its sound stays out of the mainstream dreck. The lyrics, on the other hand, can get pretty lame. The biggest problem I have with them is that they are so obviously manipulative. They play to the simplest fears and most…
Continue reading →The garden is in mid-summer mode, yielding lots of peppers and tomatoes, but fewer cucumbers, which don’t tolerate the heat as well. I had planted a patch of cantaloupe, but only one of the seedlings survived, since I was busy taking care of Abby when they were sprouting. The plant that survived ended up sending…
Continue reading →1. “Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if…
Continue reading →In 1999, while traveling along Interstate 40 in New Mexico, I noticed an exit that harbored a small village called Cuervo nestled against a mesa to the south. I made a mental note to stop there the next time I was through, and did, in September 2000. The town appeared mostly deserted, so I prowled…
Continue reading →Last night I dreamed that I went out to the garden to shoot the rabbit that has been eating my tomatoes. (In reality I am considering doing this.) While I was out there, I saw some interesting camouflage targets in the grass, so I shot at them. Later in the day, I heard shooting, so…
Continue reading →So I was sorting and organizing some 2003 negatives at the office today. The layout of my office makes it fastest for me to flip through notebooks of film and hold them to the light without removing them from the notebooks, so that they appear upside down and backwards. If I see something I need,…
Continue reading →Once is a while, I take off my titanium wedding ring and let it cool to air-conditioned-room temperature. When I put it back on, it feels like it’s brand new! My marriage always feels like it’s brand new.
Continue reading →Tomorrow is the one day of the year during which I am the only person working at our newspaper. I work literally from dawn to dusk. It is one of my busiest days of the year. It starts with covering the Fireball Classic 5k and 10k runs, goes all day in Wintersmith Park with the…
Continue reading →Unhappy people look down on me every day.
Continue reading →Sydney Irwin Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008[1]) was an Academy Award-winning American film director, producer and actor. Born in Lafayette, Indiana to Russian Jewish immigrants, Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting. He began directing television shows in the 1960s before…
Continue reading →After taking Abby to the doctor for a check-up, she and I had a fairly down afternoon. It was hot out, and Abby was off her feed, so we napped, and I burned a few DVDs. As evening approached, however, I started feeling the need to be useful, physically active, and outdoors. I grabbed the limb…
Continue reading →“Going to church doesn’t make you any more a Christian than going to the garage makes you a car.” –Laurence Peter
Continue reading →Our attempts to explain why my cucumber wouldn’t shatter under the explosive force of the legendary M-80 July 4 firework bomb have been fruitful, as shown in this simple graph…
Continue reading →I am not one of those people who blithely stumble through life taking it all for granted and simultaneously thinking my dumb little life is the center of it all. I know you know these people; their stories crop up after some crisis shatters their dystopia. They had been “happy” in their lives until a…
Continue reading →If you don’t love dogs and the cute things they do, please disregard this post.
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