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Playing The Name Game

My daughter asked, “Wanna know what I’m gonna name my children?” Of course I did. “I’m going to have two daughters, named Rose and Lily, and a son named Black-Eyed Susan.” “Is this a flower-child take on ‘A Boy Named Sue’?” My daughter blinked. She’s 4. She doesn’t yet know Johnny Cash, and more shamefully, she has yet to memorize the complete works of Shel Silverstein. I redirected my question. “Why the name Black-Eyed Susan for your boy?” I asked. “Because it’s a flower,” she responded “Right. But why that flower?” I ...

The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling

The sky is falling, the sky is falling. So now we have a Corona virus pandemic. We went shopping this morning to pick up a few supplies. We first went for some Tylenol. There was a big vacant space where this used to be. So we went for some lemonade mix. Looks like we weren’t going to get any of this either. Then we proceeded to the pasta aisle. This was so empty that we heard an echo from the squeaky cart wheels. So we decided to pick up some canned sauce and tomatoes to make some sauce for pasta we had at home. No luck there either. This was getting ridiculous. At least we ...

Don’t We All Know This?

Male birds with those gorgeous feathers, songs and dances, have puzzled scientists, including Charles Darwin, for over a century. After years of deliberation, Darwin decided that flashy plumage and elaborate song and dance could best be explained by female choice. Males developed showy plumage and elaborate songs in part, he said, to please choosy females. “‘It is certain that amongst almost all animals there is a struggle between males for the possession of the female,’ Darwin wrote in 1874, in his book The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. ‘Hence the females ...

Facing Price Gouging In This Crisis

“We don’t have any...!” Fill in the blank. People are stocking up on things, fearing that we will be stuck in our homes, under quarantine, without essential supplies. Some hoard toilet paper. A popular internet video features someone driving up to what appears to be a drug dealer but is really someone selling toilet paper. When it became hard to find hand sanitizer in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state would produce its own, made by prison labor. Yet in-demand items like masks and hand sanitizer can still be found. It’s just that we have to pay an inflated ...

Time To Unite To Fight Coronavirus

Here’s the bad news: America is at war. Not with a foreign enemy or a terrorist regime like the Islamic State Group. We’re at war with a highly contagious global virus, a pandemic, commonly known as the coronavirus. In order to combat, and ultimately destroy, this pernicious enemy threatening public health, our way of life and the U.S. economy, all Americans must put partisanship aside and practice unity. We’re in this fight together. After all, COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care if you’re a Bernie Bro, a Trump supporter or rooting for former Vice President ...

The Good Life: I Got A Lesson In Civics While In Florida

Have you ever made telephone calls on behalf of a political candidate or political party? I got to do that during our winter sojourn in Florida. That was fun. And it was new. I had never been able to do that during my working years. Giving the appearance of bias in any capacity was a journalistic no-no at newspapers where I worked in DuBois, Erie and Warren, and in Ohio’s Akron and Canton. The policy extended beyond politics. I started out as a sports writer and photographer. The rule was clear: Do not wear school insignias while reporting on a game for that school. I lived ...