Saturday Memory
October 4, 2025

Today, I am remembering my high school graduation day in June, 1956. George Washington High School. I had been selected to give the commencement address. My topic that day was “Einstein and Franklin.” The assignment was to pick two luminaries whose life would be worth emulating and why. I used a number of quotes, some of them I still remember. From Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” “Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” From Franklin: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” “Hide not your Talents, they for Use were made. What’s a Sun-Dial in the shade!” “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander Time; for that’s the Stuff Life is made of.” These quotes will occasionally pop into memory. That speech was my first audience speech. It was a joy for me to do. I was not at all fearful or focused on performance. I really believed these two guys were worth emulating–and still do!

Thought for the Day
Wednesday, September 24, 2025

The level of incompetence of the current administration is mind boggling. This incompetence is borne not only by inadequate knowledge, but the failure to even be aware of or use available knowledge. It is government by whim rather than true policies. The stupidity, inadequacy, and general ineptitude should be sounding alarm bells at all levels. One thing we can count on is that some major crisis or possibly crises are brewing. Whether they be health (e.g., another pandemic), economic (a market or housing crash), cultural (uprisings, silencing dissent), climate (storms, fires), or something else, competence will be required to deal with the reality. The current government does not have the requisite competence and that will threaten the well-being of everyone. Prepare as best you can.

Saturday Memory
September 20, 2025

Not long after my second birthday, in 1941, my parents took me to see my first movie. I remember being excited at this new experience. The movie was called The Mummy’s Hand. My mom in particular liked horror films (and horror comics). Nothing in the movie scared me. Not sure why, but I don’t recall feeling fear very often when I was a toddler or later either. Why I am remembering this movie today, I don’t know. In watching the film today, I discover this was a landmark film that encouraged Universal Studios to begin mummy movies again after the original 1932 movie starring Boris Karloff. As I try to remember my experience at the movie, I do recall eating popcorn and my parents laughing. I did not understand it at the time but there is a good bit of humor in the movie I see now. Recalling childhood memories that are seemingly out of the blue must have something to do with what Orogine meant by my “completion.” It’s like gathering up seeds that blossomed into what I became.

Thought for the Day
Wednesday, September 17, 2025

The intolerance of truth is expanding and undercutting the values that truth supports. As this intolerance develops and becomes a norm, truth loses is effectiveness in consideration of everything. Lies, disinformation,, and conspiratorial confabulation become the basis of new beliefs. Beliefs are immune to facts or rational argument and have the allure of certainty. Aside from the power of money and corruption, this intolerance of truth is a key in the corrosive defects and eventual demise of democracy. The novel,1984I, by George Orwell is a script for these times. Be aware that no matter how conscious you are, it is possible to fall pray to this insidious process.

Saturday Memory
September 13, 2025

Today is my dad’s birthday. He was born in 1913, in West Virginia. One of his outstanding qualities was his sense of humor, He often made fun of himself as a funny hillbilly. His sense of humor infused my childhood with laughter and fun. Here is a memory for today. It was the forties and times were simpler. Out first TV, a 1950 Packard-Bell, came with a record making machine. As fascinating as TV was in the beginning, and what I remember most is wrestling—Wild Red Berry and Gorgeous George and my grandmother throwing her shoe at the new TV because Red was doing bad things to Gorgeous—what occupied us most was the recording machine. My father set up regular Sunday “broadcasts” duly recorded on those 45-rpm sized vinyl disks. He would announce at the beginning that this was “station FART operating on 10,000 kilosquawts.” Everyone in the family became a reporter and we tried to outdo one another in good old Scot’s scatological “funning,” as we called it. I remember when we would all be laughing hysterically, Blackie (our Collie dog) would go running in circles, adding to the mirth, but the cats, all silver Persians which we raised for sale, remained untouched and aloof as is the pride of cats.

Russ

I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ documentary on country music (8 2-hour episodes on PBS). I am a bit surprised at how emotionally this series has impacted me. Yes, there is the ache of *nostalgia*. From the roots of the word, there is the image of *homecoming again*. As I approach 87, things remembered become stronger and impact me more. So, reconnecting with long ago memories has a purpose which I believe has something to do with *death.* It has to do with what Orogine said would be my completeness that I must focus on now. I was raised on country music long before I started to turn my attention to classical music when I began piano lessons at 8 years old. After giving some lectures in New York, I was flying home and began to watch the movie Honeysuckle Rose with Willie Nelson and Dyan Cannon. As I watched, scotch in hand, I began to tear up and finally tarted to fully breakdown crying. What was happening was that I was hearing early country singers: Jimmy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hank Williams and others. I couldn’t help myself. The attendant was concerned as were the passengers. Finally, my crying stopped and I sunk into the movie. Later, I told my parents about this experience. My dad said he knew why it happened. He told me that when I was a baby, he would rock me in his arms as he sang along to country songs on the radio. To cure his stuttering. I never knew he stuttered. The coupling of those early voices and the emotional response of crying was strikingly stronger than any conscious memory of those singers would bring about. I think I was hearing what I heired when I was a baby. Research now indicated that implicit memories occur as early as birth to three months and that explicit memory begins to form by six months. So what I was experiencing on the plane was very likely those early voices on the radio and my dad’s singing. This is likely as well, what has brought up so much feeling and emotion and memory in watching Ken Burns’ wonderful documentary.

Thought for the Day

Wednesday, September 3, 2025

The eros of telling from the inside is an art which can contribute to the common good, give birth to alternate futures, and develop in us the moral and ethical capacity to choose wisely. It is especially valuable now as an antidote to the poisonous narcissism that is flooding the world today.

Russ

Saturday Memory
August 30, 2025

I woke up today hearing Bob Dylan singing “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Low Lands.” I first heard this song in 1966. I remember listening to it many times. It was definitely an earworm. I sang along with it. I remember not trying to figure out the meaning of the song, but feeling if I listened enough my attraction to it would deepen into some sense of “understanding” on something other than a rational level. Even then, I considered this song to be Dylan’s most enigmatic song. Now 59 years later, this song has once again becomes something I want to experience without analysis or interpretation at a depth where one simply knows.

Russ

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Thought for the Day
Wednesday, August 27, 2025

What could go wrong when pathology, wed to power, money, and corruption, occupies the most powerful position in the world? What do we need to look out for as signs that this toxicity will begin to lose its pestilential power? As Chris Armitage notes, “Once fascist win power democratically, they have never been removed democratically. Not once, ever.” It follows that the leader of the current scourge will have to leave at the end of term, resign, be impeached, become incapacitated, or die. It seems clear that none of the usual limits to power apply now, or in the coming years. Most every possible curb is proving woefully ineffective. What, then, can one do? When faced with this conundrum, I tend to look at dreams, particularly dreams that come from the depths. What I see there in my own dreams and the dreams of others is that something “wholly unexpected” Is brewing for which, at the present time, we have no inkling whatever. Watch for it.