A week or so before the change of U.S. administrations, I happened to see a brief television interview with a man – a professed Democrat – in what looked like a feed store in the southern state of Arkansas. He said he had voted for Republican presidential candidate John McCain rather than Democrat Barack Obama. […]
Pretty as a Picture . . . Postcard
Posted January 16th, 2009 at 9:45 pm (UTC-4)
I love to travel across America . . . by postcard! When I cannot actually get somewhere – or even if I do – I look for a beautiful picture postcard of the place. Not one of those overly bright and blue-sky-perfect cards made from cheap color slides, either. Even you and I can take […]
Michigone?
Posted December 12th, 2008 at 8:26 pm (UTC-4)
This is written on Friday: Blacker than Black Friday in Michigan, after the U.S. Senate failed to muster enough votes to approve a $14-billion bridge loan to the reeling Big Three American automakers. People in that cold North Central state are dejected, frightened, and angry. But unlike the fictional TV anchorman Howard Beale, who famously […]
Texians
Posted October 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm (UTC-4)
President Bush has frequently vacationed at his Prairie Chapel Ranch near Crawford. Like former President Ronald Reagan at his Western White House, Bush relaxes by clearing brush. On the January day that he becomes our former president, or soon thereafter, George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, will leave Washington for their ranch near tiny […]
N’Awlins
Posted October 17th, 2008 at 5:47 pm (UTC-4)
It’s been 23 years since I left New Orleans, and still, to quote the Eddie De Lange and Louis Alter song of half a century ago, I know what it means to miss “New Orleens.” Oh yeah, I know. This old postcard view captures the Pontalba Apartments, built by Baroness Michaela Pontalba, who also convinced […]
Where the West Begins
Posted September 25th, 2008 at 4:52 pm (UTC-4)
A family poses before their Custer County, Nebraska, sod house in 1886. A “soddie” was one of the few options on the plains, where trees were scarce. In “The Ballad of East and West,” Rudyard Kipling wrote what may be his most quoted line: “East is East and West is West, and never the twain […]
