Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

  As a youngster, I remember watching Meet the Press on Sunday mornings.  I have a feeling this began when I stayed overnight at my maternal grandmother's Chicago apartment (4051 West School Street).  She was the home district secretary to Congressman Roman C. Pucinski (D), 11th Congressional District of Illinois, and had a keen interest in the workings, and machinations, of politics.  Rose Laura Dach Piekielko was a died in the wool Richard C. Daley (D), Mayor of Chicago, Democrat.  Those beliefs had a significant impact on my own political ideals. Consequently, it has become my habit to watch the Sunday morning political interview shows.  I stuck with Meet the Press when Tim Russert and Chuck Todd were the hosts.  Television scheduling being what it is, Meet the Press interfered with the last half hour of CBS Sunday Morning, another stalwart view in our home.  Scrolling around, it seemed as if the various political parties shilled out the same p...

And here's the wind up for 2018 and the pitch for 2019... This morning, driving to yoga, I heard a gentleman being interviewed on MPR talking about President Trump's disturbing description of Dr. Christine Blassey Ford's testimony during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.  He used the analogy of the President speaking to a crowd at the Roman Colosseum as they cheered on his belittling words. This seems like a particularly adept way of looking at how we can react to the President's diatribes and verbiage.  We can simply stay out of the Coliseum, not buy into what he is saying.  Doing so give his words unwarranted power--and besides, they change within minutes (if not seconds) of spilling out of his mouth. Does this mean we give him a free pass?  He of 7,644 falsehoods in 2018? ( Washington Post )   Of course not.   It is our civic duty to pay attention.  (One end of the year wrap up article thanked all politicians for the crash cou...

A few random thoughts have been rattling around the aging brain... Propped Open Hearts:   (This has a religious bend to it. )   I'm a fan of Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper , as previously noted here.  She ends each post with a prayer, and this was last Sunday's:  Dear God,  this world is filled with so many people and so much good, yet it’s easy to slip into the feeling that I’m all alone. Help me remember that I am not alone. Help me remember that there are people who care. Help me to be a beacon of light and understanding for others as well. Amen. Something I've been having internal conversations about is my ability--or rather, self-perceived lack of ability--to formulate prayer.  Reading this one by Ms Shriver, who is a journalist I had to remind myself, hammered that home again.  My verbal prayers tend toward the formulaic and ritualistic, as in the Hail Mary, Our Father and I find great comfort in those.  I've decided that prayers ...

This morning, I read in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that many people interviewed in Anoka County, part of the 7 county Metro Atea and heavily Republican, said they paid no attention to the recent Trump-Putin Summit. Really? We are all entitled to our opinions regarding how our President is providing leadership for the country.  I recently summed up my feelings in a Facebook post.  And because we are a democratic republic, I firmly believe you are entitled to your feelings as well. However, allow me to encourage one and all to express an informed opinion. And in order to do that, you must PAY ATTENTION! The Washington Post reminds us that “Democracy dies in darkness.”  If we don’t pay attention, we will ourselves to remaining in the dark. I have been hearing and reading that some are giving up listening to the news and what the President says because it’s too frustrating or aggravating or sad or annoying or ridiculous or exhausting.  They are saying they ...