All posts by jmp

credit: Pew Research Center Sometimes I wonder if young people today are having any fun. There is substantial evidence they are increasingly isolated. They date less, attend fewer parties, are less inclined to partnerships, marriage, and families. Their lives seem anchored to their phones. It has the trappings of a virtual existence. Derek Thompson in Read More

Birds in a Fog – photo credit: David Davies Well, it’s winter, after all. A new year, new administration, not so new sense of society in upheaval. Images of sandhill cranes in a fog. It seems the next line should be: the sun’ll come out tomorrow. Would you bet your bottom dollar? We can only Read More

Mario “the Big M” Medious II Mario Medious II is a name you would know if you ever waded into those fast waters of Sixties and Seventies rock ‘n’ roll. He was the wizard of album promotions for Atlantic Records when Ahmet Ertegan and Jerry Wexler were helming perhaps the hottest label in the business. Read More

Point Normal for Unsplash Well, that was quite a year, right? Yet another one, in fact. How many times in your life have you reached year’s end and not had that very thought? Is life becoming stranger or are we just paying closer attention? I’ve never been certain whether this one was better or worse Read More

Penrose Triangle by Oscar Reutersvärd c. 1934 Perspective. Having it. Keeping It. In this case making sense of it. Where perception is reality, what you see is what you get. But if the eyes deceive you, well, what then? We were raised to believe a picture is worth a thousand words. We have entered a Read More

Turtles and the Lunar Calendar Black Moon, yes, because there are two new moons this month and, as the second full moon in a given month is a blue moon (according to one interpretation), the second new moon in a month is a black moon. That seems to make sense. It does bring to mind, Read More

Alexander Mils on Unsplash What do you believe in? At the core of who you are, what supports your sense of self? We imagine all sorts of responses, but when we look at the social order and what we hold in highest regard, winning might be the honest answer. Everybody wants to be victorious, right? Read More

Samhain and the Coming Winter – credit: the irishjewelrycompany.com What spooks you? Gremlins, ghosts, and goblins? Things that go bump in the night? All Hallows Eve is supposed to be spooky, of course, but it’s hardly the only time of the year when the hair on the back of the neck tingles or queasiness unsettles Read More

Pilgrims c. 1620 We know about American history, right? The Pilgrims, Bunker Hill, Sherman’s March thru Georgia, the Indian Wars, Henry Ford’s Model T, the Great Depression, World War II, leader of the free world. That’s what they teach us in school, right? That’s our story. What about pre-history though in this place we know Read More

Cosmic Consciousness – credit: sciencephotogallery.com I don’t know about you, but in this raging blizzard of information and the clickbait that attends it, my mind tends to wander. There’s all this stuff yelling at us, proclaiming its importance with a lot of volume if not much matter, but mostly it just seems like noise. A Read More