The best part for me about the total solar eclipse I actually saw (on July 10, 1972), came several months later, in Carly Simon’s wonderfully bitter tune “You’re So Vain,” and the line about the cad she was sticking it to went to Saratoga New York for a horse race, and then: “You flew your … Continue reading Solar Eclipse? Meh. Wake Me When It’s Over.
I Woke up this morning to find my (adopted) home town & state made the big-time news AGAIN over our 2024 state election campaign. Anybody who recalls the NC political scene in 2016 — especially business people and boosters — likely still feels twinges of trauma when the phrase “Bathroom bill” is mentioned. NC lost … Continue reading Durham: Will Another Big Bruising Bathroom Bill Battle Bust Up Bull Durham’s Burgeoning Business Boom?
Sheesh! Did somebody slip one (or two) of those “new” cure-all psychedelic pills into my low-sodium tomato juice?? Must have, because I’m having wild and weird hallucinations from —I don’t know— 1967? They’re full of long-haired young men shouting slogans against the draft. I can tell they’re hallucinations because other than the hair, the protesters … Continue reading Flashbacks! I’m Having 1967 Anti-Draft Flashbacks! From Vietnam to Jerusalem
Last month I attended two presentations by the new AFSC Director of Quaker Engagement, Brian Blackmore, at Durham and Chapel Hill Meetings here in North Carolina. Blackmore, just a year in the job, is the successor to Lucy Duncan, a longtime AFSC staffer who was unceremoniously fired in early 2022 when she tried to start … Continue reading AFSC: When the Slides Went Awry, And The Key Questions Weren’t Asked . . .
It’s a venerable Jewish joke: a Jew falls off a ship, in mid-ocean, and swims to an uninhabited island. Years later, his SOS signal is spotted. When rescuers arrive, they find he has managed to construct three small buildings from flotsam and jetsam: a small cabin, and two identical synagogues. “Why two?” He was asked. … Continue reading Could Drafting Ultra-OrthodoxYouth Bring Down Israel’s Government?