Empathy, DNA Testing, and A New Year

December 31, 2019 at 11:34 PM — Here’s to things looking better in 2020. This year of 2019 ends not only a trying year but a whole decade, and it seems so much more is ending or transitioning in my life. It’s a bit strange to mark a meaningless moment astronomically as the end of one year and the beginning of a new one, to place so much significance on one passing piece of time, but it allows a chance to reflect back and look forward…to process the changes now in motion.

I Me Mine

All through’ the day – I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
All through’ the night – I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
Now they’re frightened of leaving it, Ev’ryone’s weaving it,
Coming on strong all the time, All through the day, I me mine.

~George Harrison

Summer Reading: Road Books

As we move into fall in America, I just finished my summer reading. I picked out four ‘road’ books: two autobiographical fiction novels and two ‘nonfiction’ travelogues. Of the fiction ones, ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac is thought by many to be the quintessential American road book, while the iconic ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ is considered to be more of a philosophical novel. The last two books are travelogues by William Least-Heat Moon: ‘Blue Highways’ and ‘Roads to Quoz’.

Star Trek Discovery, In the Pale Moonlight

After getting home from traveling, I used a free week of CBS All Access to binge Star Trek Discovery. This is a spoiler review of the second season that harkens back to a great episode of Deep Space Nine called In the Pale Moonlight. There’s major spoilers including picking apart some of the Discovery plot points. If you really like the show, this take probably isn’t for you, but if you’re more critical about your sci-fi, read on. Spoilers abound.

Does Travel Change You?

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Public Lust and Ear Plugs

I wrote this (mostly) a few days ago while staying in a backpacker’s hostel in Dublin.

I’m staying in a mixed (gender) room at a not-to-be-named hostel in Dublin, Ireland. I figured a mixed room might be an experience and it proved to be true.

Land of Ire

I’m headed to Ireland, and taking an extended trip into England, Belgium, and Switzerland. Originally, I planned to make a new website or blog of my journeys, but that never felt right. I did that when I went to Australia eleven years ago, creating a personal blog of my inner and outer journeys. I’m not sure these times are right for that kind of introspection. This journey feels too personal, and I’m a bit tired of writing about myself.

The True Varsity Blues

The university admissions scandal (#varsityblues) is one of those watershed moments that has me looking back over life and doing some rewriting. My autobiographical fiction books have some thoughts about ‘the death of universities’ in America, and some of those anecdotes come to mind. People have been saying that cheating is nothing new or it’s always been like this, but really it hasn’t, at least not to this degree.

Crooked Tucson Revisited

I got a ‘heads up’ call early last Monday. ‘Beware! The Feds may want to talk to you.’ An old boss had been led away in handcuffs and another was apparently on the lam. Crooked Tucson rearing its head again.

Star Trek Discovery Versus The Orville

If you follow Star Trek on Facebook, it has become a tiring spectacle to see self-professed fans of The Orville troll Star Trek Discovery (DSC) posts. There’s lots of whining and complaining about how Discovery isn’t ‘true’ Star Trek and The Orville is more like Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). In American culture today, it seems like idiots are trying to force us to take sides on everything, and that’s a shame. There’s no need to suffer like idiots.