Tag Archives: New York Times

photography, Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Social media-loving D.C. rioters are finding there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide

Interesting question raised by a former newspaper colleague and a Poynter institute column: “Should journalists play a role in identifying rioters?”

That’s the headline and based on it alone, the answer is, of course. Media goes after the facts and a big chunk of the facts from last week’s Washington riot answers the question: Who the hell were these people?

The more-specific and thornier question is: “Should the media turn over unpublished documentation, especially photographs, to law enforcement upon request?”

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

When peering into the infinite universe, always watch your step

The musician David Byrne was asked in the New York Times which subjects would he like to see more authors write about.

I liked his answer.

“I’ll turn it around — most writers should avoid writing about writers as their main characters. I know, I know, ‘write what you know.’”

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Crossword clue: ‘It might send you to the moon’ and your answer is …

In a crossword puzzle today:

“It might send you to the moon”

Horizontal. Four letters.

So obvious. I wrote in 

LOVE

+ + + + +

But LOVE is thwarted by insensitive vertical clues

That have nothing to do with love:

“Some shortcuts for ships” CANALS

“Body position in yoga” ASANA

“Great ___ National Park” BASIN

“Brand of figure-shaping underwear” SPANX

+ + + + +

For a flight to the moon,

The crossword’s answer

Is pretty pedestrian. (Especially after

Spanx and asana which, come to think of it,

May have something to do with love.)

Perhaps songwriters and poets should create

Our nation’s crossword puzzle clues.

+ + + + +

Love, of course, is all you need.

Love will send you to the moon.

But romantic metaphors, apparently,

Have no place in a Wednesday

New York Times Crossword Puzzle.

+ + + + +

Although, the clue for 57 down,

“Middle of many metaphors,”

Suggests somebody knows something

About figures of speech.

If not love.

+ + + + +

That answer, to 57 down, sadly,

Is not LOVE, either.

It is only three letters: ISA

Really, only two words, “IS A” 

+ + + + +

ISA, as in …

He is a car wreck waiting to happen.

Her love is a one-way trip to the moon.

He is a puddle of mush when she walks into the room.

Their love is a three-ring circus.

+ + + + +

ISA is an “ugh …”

(Also three letters, but not an answer.)

I don’t want and ugh. I want a hug.

I want better. I want more.

I want LOVE to send us to the moon.

Even in a Wednesday crossword puzzle.

+ + + + +

But if LOVE doesn’t, or can’t,

Send us to the moon

Because things get in the way, like,

Canals, yoga, tight underwear and national parks

What will?

+ + + + +

A very important question

These days:

What sends you to the moon?

What keeps you from taking a trip to the moon?

Use as many letters and metaphors as you wish.

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

The Log for May 19: Breath of Fresh Air, Trump’s purge, Moppit’s spa day, Tom Swifties, and Escher-cise

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Sorry about the bleeding ink. Won’t happen again!

GOOD READ:

Lesson learned: The first half of a New York Times headline sounded just great, “Air travel surges by 123 percent!” But read on: “(Beware of misleading data like that)”

Marking the rise and fall of events by using percentages is an old dodge in the misinformation game. Economist Neil Irwin explains why you have to look behind the headlines, at the raw numbers — especially in these unusual times. Continue reading →

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

The Log for May 13: Hey, brother, can you loan me a dime for a ride into the mystic?

IMG_1672Oh, this day has begun all right — an All-Music Morning for Wednesday.

#1  “The Girl In Byakkoya,” Susumu Hirasawa,  from the animated film “Paprika.” This is the music that gets you up and moving. Check out the movie, too — anime magical surrealism at its finest. A mad enormously ballooning parade that absorbs everybody, everything — all energy  — as it progresses. Who can stop it? And how?

#2  Delbert McClinton channels his inner-Tony Bennett and sings about “San Miguel”! (Even mentions San Francisco in the first line … (Thanks for the tip, Robert Cooksey.) Continue reading →

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San Miguel de Allende, Writings

The Log for May 12, 2020: Good reads, good movies and something I can’t explain

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Look below for the annotated version with links dipped in fresh hot chocolate for the good homebody feeling:

Really good reads:

#1  “Fuck the Bread. The Bread is over.”  By Sabrina Orah Mark,  Paris Review,  May 7, 2020.   “In February, as a plague enters America, I am a finalist for a job I am not offered.

“I am brought to campus for a three-day interview. I am shown the library I’ll never have access to, and introduced to students I’ll never teach. I shake hands with faculty I’ll never see again. I describe in great detail the course on fairy tales I’ll never offer.” Continue reading →

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

The Log: May 5, 2020 — Listing all the tabs open on my computer (so I can close ’em)

IMG_1547An inventory of all the tabs still open at the end of the day, May 5, 2020, on my Acer Chromebook:

#1  “Flattening the Truth on Coronavirus,” by author Dave Eggers, New York Times | Opinion, May 3, 2020. “All your questions about the pandemic, answered. Sort of.”

#2  “Our message to the class of 2020”  by Bill and Melinda Gates, GatesNotes | The blog of Bill Gates, May 5, 2020. “This year’s graduates can help build a healthier, more equal world.” Continue reading →

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Uncategorized

‘To see ourselves as riders on the earth together…’

earthrise

Apollo 8 astronaut William A. Anders took this celebrated shot of the Earth “rising” on Christmas Eve in 1968. NASA photo

Fifty years ago, when man landed on the moon, The New York Times turned to a poet, Archibald MacLeish, to place the event into some sort of context on its front page.

Seven months earlier, when the astronauts of Apollo 8 had become, on Christmas Eve, the first humans to enter the moon’s orbit, Archibald MacLeish also interpreted the meaning of it all for the Times, but in prose.

He referred to humankind as “brothers,” as was common then. If you overlook that, his concluding paragraph is profound:

“To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold — brothers who know now they are truly brothers.”

I pray that when we next visit the moon, it will be for the benefit of all humankind and not the personal glorification of one.

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