New View Askew

  A Solstice Epiphany Say, the sun comes up in same place every year on the Solstice - huh (A pale version of this story will allegedly be in the Star Tribune commentaries this week (18-24) sometime - best guess is Thur 21st. This version is much better!) As perhaps my last solstice story I want this one to be different. I would also like to share a deep (by Dear Leader standards) thought that came to me while writing it.  Part of this epiphany is a result of my  ( self-described)  wildly popular   Equinox post a few months ago.  For many years I have been writing about – and taken credit for – the return of the sun on the winter solstice, hopefully in a semi-humorous way. Had I taken the time and effort to do the same deep dive about the solstice as I did on the equinox I would have discovered that I have unknowingly had a lot of help from many others around the world in my efforts. (Of course those posts would not have been nearly as entertaining.) Anyway...

    . . . Denny Kearns  Aug 22, 1941-Nov 16, 2023   Welcome aboard - you're in for a great trip! Some people are lucky to have one really good friend in life. Even luckier guys might have a few. So, what do you call a person who has a large circle of such friends? It has to be me. Yet the luckiest people in the world can't hold back the inevitable shrinkage of that circle. Mine recently had another large section taken out. I have lost several friends in the past few years – a price for living to a certain age, I suppose - e ach one as painful as the last and e ach with stories that begged to be told (along with some that beg to be left alone.) As far as I can tell, the only benefit  for those of us left in  this tightening gyre is that we tell those stories without fear of revenge!  And now I - no, all of us in his large fraternity of friends - have lost another. One Dennis C Kearns aka DK. We owe him many stories and here are mine. Where to start? A...

  Thoughts on Freedom and Sacrifice Veterans Day is always a day for remembering the price that our military has paid over the years for protecting freedom here and all over the world. (At least I hope that’s what we have been defending.) The costs in lives and treasure are very evident and painful. The Price for Freedom is Always Paid I am old guy now and as a vet who participated in several of our conflicts - ostensibly about freedom - I have been thinking more deeply about what freedom means; what have we been defending?   It seems we Americans have a very broad definition of the word freedom - and a singular bond with it. People in most other countries are happy to  just  have the freedom of a peaceful, decent life. Not us, we think of almost  everything  we can - and cannot - do in terms of freedom. Here's an interesting local example: A couple years ago t he city of St Paul  decided to centralize trash collection, ...