“The task of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much personal integrity as possible; it is to dismantle those systems.” -Lierre Keith It has been grand fun watching the kids in New York, occupying Wall Street and avoiding showers while castigating the oppressive patriarchal capitalist system. It evokes the […]

I was going to talk to you about a couple other things this morning, but then the news of Frank’s death spread, and I had to draft an obit, and I put aside an analysis of the origins of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It is all quite curious, and worth some discussion about the […]

I like Mondays, don’t you? Can’t help that day. It great to get to the office on a Columbus Day holiday and really stretch out and do some problem solving, and I was hard at it all afternoon. I was startled when Raven picked up the phone. I mean, shocked. Stunned. It was late in […]

I felt good after doing a modest amount of work at the farm. I got the truck unloaded, finally, and hauled the media cabinet and little blue couch up to the front door, up the plank stoop and into the back room. I moved out the existing Adirondack chairs, transferring them to the garage, and […]

I was looking down on the pastures from the deck on the back of the farmhouse. There is a strange sense of disorientation as I settle in to the place. Frank, the local guys who whacks the grass for me, has done a nice job and the place looks great even after all the rain […]

  It was getting late in the day, the day being late in the week, and it looked beautiful outside. It tugged at me as I sat at my desk on the 8th floor of the building in the vibrant Ballston neighborhood of go-go Arlington. I face the window, which is a key violation of […]

I wish Turner Classic Movies showed more of the Marx Brothers- that is Big Mama’s favorite television channel, and the films she watches are integrated into the blended space-time continuum in which she lives. I had to think about their classic film “Duck Soup,” since Big Mama has taken on some of the aspects of […]

  I am sitting here at the table, stewing in Steve Job’s juices. I am pecking at the MacBook, the iPod 4th Gen is charging on a cord attached to the computer, and by peck, my fingers, and the iPad is resting in the Sixty Year Bag. Steve was 56 when he passed last night- […]

The Bluesmobile was at the curb on North Utahstreet , having hurtled back from Falls Church to Ballston with impressive velocity. The sun was back in the sky after what seemed like weeks of chill gray and rainy skies. The change in weather helped me feel generally good about the $1100 I dropped at Currey’s […]

I had the best of all food worlds this weekend, though Fall sort of got lost in the mix. It started with happy hour white after work on Friday- and Tracy O’Grady, Willow’s vivacious owner- stopped by the Amen Corner to have a glass of wine with Old Jim, Mary, Jake and me. She mentioned […]