Eat More Bugs
Just in time for your summer picnic season comes a report which may forever change how you feel about ants. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released a report calling on people to eat more insects, not only to boost nutrition, but to fight pollution and global hunger. While this may seem a [...]
The Horror
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that Republicans are either as crazy as the proverbial mouse or they’re playing a dangerous game. Last month, a research center at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, PublicMind, conducted a poll measuring the beliefs of registered voters concerning a possible Sandy Hook cover-up, gun control and the likelihood [...]
The life of a lonely columnist
It’s not as easy as it may seem, you know. This work. Sitting here week after week staring at a blank computer screen for hours, trying to come up with a column which someone will bother to read and which might make them think about a particular subject, or maybe even change the occasional mind. [...]
Hogs in the Stream
My old pappy used to say that a Texan wasn’t nothing but a Mexican who had run out of pesos before he reached the Oklahoma border. Well, that’s not exactly how he phrased it, I’ve cleaned it up a little. Yet while it stands as a broad commentary on the character of Texans in general [...]
Confessions of a Sardine Eater
I got a call from an old girlfriend, Lenora, in Tulsa the other day. At one time we had been something of an item. That was until she found out that despite being an insurance company executive and wearing a suit to work every day, I was stone broke and my fortune was unlikely to [...]
The Trouble with Democrats
The trouble with being a Democrat is that, more often than not, you have to hold your nose and vote for the latest yahoo the party machinery has kicked out, just in order to stem the dark tide of Republican greed, repression and idiocy. You can be sure that any candidate who truly represents Democratic [...]
The War Next Time
The recent ten-year anniversary of the Iraq War passed, certainly not celebrated, and largely unobserved, but clearly lacking the level of righteous outrage which should accompany such a useless, immoral, and costly failure. More than 5,000 American lives, over 30,000 injured, at least 150,000 Iraqi civilians dead, their country in shambles. Current estimates of the [...]
Vaping with Ernie and Wynette
I was feeling like I needed a little more company than my dog Jake could offer the other day, so I called my old friends Ernie and Wynette, hoping they might invite me over. “What are you guys doing?” I asked when Ernie answered the telephone. “Just sitting around having a beer and vaping,” he [...]
On Pawville Hill
We’ve had our share of chicken troubles. Complaining neighbors, city officials, vicious cats, superstitious chickens and even chickens so dumb they wouldn’t come in out of the rain, as they say. But last week was a sad, sad time. Apparently it happened while I was walking with my good friend and faithful dog, Jake. I’m [...]
Ernie Does Drones
My old friend, Ernie, called me the other day. He sounded pretty excited over the telephone. “Holmes, you’ve got to come see what I bought with my tax refund. You won’t believe it. Meet me at the park on the hill,” he said. Over the years he’s bought some pretty outlandish stuff and I knew [...]
These Winter-Time Blues
By the time this goes to press, the weather will probably have warmed, the birds will be singing, flowers budding and spring will be in the air, causing us to forget the cold, soggy, dismal days of winter so recently held. We’re a fickle, forgetful lot, weather-wise. I blame it on the weatherman. Only days [...]
The sky’s the limit
This week I have a message for all the school children out there, so I hope you’ll pass it along, especially if the children in your household can’t read. Are you worried about that biology class you have to take, with all those funny sounding words like zygote, mitochondria, phylum, genus, etc.? What about diplomonads [...]
Items of Dubious Interest
Maybe it was the spring-like day we had towards the end of last week, or maybe my lazy cycle peaked, but I found myself without a clear topic for this week’s column and little inclination to actually write anything which required even a nominal exercise of brain power. So this week I thought I’d try [...]
Cat Cults
One night, not long after I moved here, I was driving down 15th Street towards the cemetery and I could barely believe my eyes. There were cats every place, lolling in yards, casually crossing the road, glaring at me from the sidewalks. It was something the real estate people failed to mention, but then hey, [...]
Where’s the beef?
These warm, sunny days we’ve had lately seem like springtime and naturally even an old man’s fancy turns to thoughts of…well, grilling outdoors, what else? Nothing heralds the return of the sun quite like a t-bone or brisket grilling over an open fire. Or even a lowly hamburger, preferably minus the pink slime. Americans, at [...]
Ernie goes green
I was driving past my old friend, Ernie’s house the other day and I couldn’t believe what I saw in the front yard. There was a big sign that read, “Time is Running Out, Stop Global Warming!” Now Ernie has always been from the Inhofe School of Environmental Studies which teaches that there’s no such [...]
Can We Afford the Rich?
In these days of austerity and belt-tightening, most Americans have had to re-examine even their most basic expenditures. Certainly they’ve cut out most luxuries. But there is one major luxury for which we all pay that is seldom examined or even questioned. Nor is it a luxury that we can eliminate from our household budget. [...]
The Trouble with Honey
As a Type II diabetic, I try to use honey instead of sugar when I simply must have something sweet. Honey has a lower glycemic index and is thus “better” for me. Apparently it has been used for millennium for its medicinal properties. Besides, what could be more natural and organic than honey? So when [...]
Our Daily Bread
Some of my first memories were of standing in the kitchen as my Mom made bread. She’d mix it in a bowl, knead it and place it in a warm spot to rise. As that happened the room would fill with a warm, yeasty smell. Next, she’d place the dough in an old, well-worn rectangular [...]
Outsourcing Granny
I have a nephew in Texas who keeps threatening to outsource his needed “uncle services” to India. He says he can get an entire family for less than what it costs him to maintain even a single uncle. Ungrateful wretch has obviously forgotten all the valuable advice I’ve given him over the years, even when [...]
Arming America
Saw my old friend, Ernie, the other day. He was standing outside of the donut shop talking with a couple of fellows about the shooting in Connecticut. “We’ve got to arm the teachers,” Ernie said emphatically. “Or put security guards in the schools. Or both.” Ernie is a long-standing member of the National Rifle Association [...]
Massacre of the Innocents
As I watched the drama unfold — the grief of devastated parents, the photos of the children, babies really, the heroic teachers, now dead — tears came to my eyes and rolled quietly down my cheeks. Never have I been so moved by anything I’ve watched on the television. Even for us, so inured to [...]
The zombie apocalypse
I hadn’t seen my old friend, Ernie, for a while so I stopped by his house last week. “He’s in his safe room,” said his wife, Wynette, rolling her eyes. “His what?” I asked. “The basement,” she explained. The basement is Ernie’s lair, of sorts, and the scene of many dubious projects and undertakings, but I [...]
A Tinker’s Dream
I’ve always been a tinker. At times it was a necessity, like rebuilding the heads on an old Mercury outdoors in the middle of a New Mexico winter, or fixing the washing machine for the umpteenth time so we could do a much-needed load of laundry. At other times I have tinkered simply for the [...]
