New View Askew

June 29, 2016 It’s a cliché but it is the simplest things that give us the greatest pleasure in life. I was thinking about this the other night as I was sitting on our little handcrafted patio (oddly, I'm a far too infrequent visitor there) on a lovely, early summer evening. It seems that often when I am sent back in time by some memory or other it’s with a little melancholy or sadness at moments lost; watching them disappear in the rear view mirror, never to be seen again. Not on this night! The evening sunlight hits the trees just so (dappling?) and the breeze is rustling through them like the hair on a baby’s head. All this and a martini too - ahhhh.  But that’s not all. I think a big part of the overall sense of contentment (or at least not my usual creeping cynicism) that I enjoyed was the background sounds of the neighborhood kids enjoying this same evening the way kids should – but don’t always do anymore. Did I mention that we have a LOT of young ...

Men, I tell you that we are under siege! It’s not just that women are now running companies, are the majority in college, taking over law schools and creeping up in medical school. No, this is getting REALLY serious - and frightening.                               Amazons practicing post-male home management skills There are two separate but related bits of news that I have stumbled upon that I think may have dire consequences for us guys, but you be the judge. First, from Verve Magazine, scientists have discovered that apparently we guys perform spermicide on our own, you know . . . you know. Apparently somewhere along the line – perhaps after thousands of generations of nagging by wives tired of raising idiot children – our sperm voluntarily kills off some of our DNA so that (get this) the woman’s DNA can have, quote, “a bigger influence.” A bigger influence! My god, they already rule the w...

What about those Brits, huh? Yeah, now I mean all those folks that voted to leave the European Union. Given the reaction around the world you would think that WW III has started! Not that I had a real strong opinion one way or the other but I kind of thought they’d vote to stay in if for no other reason than simple inertia; it’s much easier to keep doing what you’ve been doing than it is to change. I guess they were pretty serious about it. So what does it mean? Damned if I know and people a lot smarter than me don’t know either. Some people think this was a vote for independence and freedom from the tyranny of Big Brother and the EU. Probably something to that. Others put a darker spin on it by emphasizing the anti-immigrant anger and nativism aspect of it and there’s probably truth to that too. Still others point out the similarities of anti-elite and insider anger to that which is going in the US with the Trump and Sanders campaigns. Yup. And there is this: the young...

What about those Brits, huh?! No, not the ones that voted to exit the EU; Jimmy Page and Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. They won a plagiarism suit that was filed against them by a guy (now dead) who said they ripped off his song when they wrote “Stairway to Heaven.” Say it isn’t so, boys! Well, apparently the jury agreed that they didn’t pilfer the melody to the tune.   You know these kind of cases happen a lot. Johnny Cash lost a case that he plagiarized “Folsum Prison Blues.” Recently the Estate of Marvin Gay won a case against of couple of guys (who I don’t really know.) A really bad loss was when a group called The Verve was found guilty of stealing the Rolling Stones music from “The Last Time” for the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” It was a terrible judgement! Anyway, I guess a song sometimes reminds you of some other song it’s because they are kind of same song! Well, I think this case had some merit. Just listen to the first couple minutes of each of these songs....

June 23 2016 And then there was one.  (Sgt. Thatcher on left) From the Missoulian newspaper: MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — One of the last two surviving members of the Doolittle Raiders — who bombed Japan in an attack that stunned that nation and boosted U.S. morale — has died in Montana, his family said. Retired Staff Sgt. David Jonathan Thatcher died Wednesday in a Missoula hospital. He was 94. He suffered a stroke on Sunday, Thatcher's son Jeff told the Missoulian newspaper ( http://bit.ly/28V8l2c ). Thatcher's death leaves Retired Lt. Col. Richard "Dick" Cole of Comfort, Texas, as the only living airman from among 80 who took off from an aircraft carrier on 16 B-25 bombers to target factory areas and military installations in Japan on April 18, 1942. Afterward, the planes headed for airfields in mainland China, realizing they would run out of fuel, according to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. The...

J une 22, 2016 Well here’s a great way to start a fight with your spouse; just say, “I’m NOT eating arugula. You can’t make me and I won’t do it!” (Hmm, that’s sounds vaguely familiar from my childhood.) Let me explain. This is our second year of buying into a sort of a home delivery of farmer’s market veggies. You buy a share of farm grown veggies and they are delivered to a house in the neighborhood where everybody goes to pick them up. Every week the box has a little different mix of vegetables. When I peered into this first box I knew I was in trouble, nothing really edible in there like carrots or peas or beans or tomatoes. There was a collection of stuff of various shades of green. Don’t get me wrong, I like green.  . . when it’s on a golf course or in my yard right after winter but I’m just not a fan of many of the green vegetables and especially of the leafy variety. Which reminds me that I once had a co-pilot with whom I flew all over the world. His self-g...

So I had another letter to the editor published in the Star Tribune today. I seem to get a lot of letters published – but then I send in a lot of letters! I’d like to think they publish them because my letters are so clear and logical and obviously true that they simply must be shared with the masses. In truth, I suspect that they just appeal to the biases of whoever reviews them and decides to publish - never underestimate the power of bias! I can give you an example of this from this very letter. My letter was in response to one written by another writer that suggested that maybe we should consider making changes to the Constitution that would reflect the changes and needs of Modern America. The guy went way overboard on specific suggestions (but oddly nothing about texting and driving or too many craft beers!) Nonetheless, I generally agreed that it might be time to address some obvious flaws (obvious to me, that is – first bias.) I won’t go into details about my thoughts h...

You know, I have really missed inflicting my sometimes odd and other times infuriating opinions about things on innocent people. I enjoyed writing the View Askew but it was a LOT of work given its, shall we say, ambitious nature. So unlike the original format this version will be a much more modest affair (if there is such a thing. As a modest affair, I mean.) You won't have to read a lot before you can decide to change channels, as it were; you will know know right away that you're disgusted and will read no more! So, rather than a long, grandiose monthly newsletter covering a bunch of things that I think are interesting, this version will (try to be) a shorter but more frequent quick hit type of thing focused on - hopefully - a single item that others may be as interested in as I am (or not.) My intent is to write something every day and, as with the original, try to approach it from a little different angle. Who knows if and how much I will be successful but we shall journ...