Loosely Speaking

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Everything Else

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

No thank you please!

I saw an ad today for a baby cot that, when the baby cries, deploys a variety of lights and motions to calm the unhappy, restless kiddo. Oh yeah, that's so much better for the parent who doesn't want to be disturbed. Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Raising a glass...

to CANADA! Happy Canada Day! Thank you for your patience with us, for your compassion and sympathy in these unprecedented conditions. I cheer you for facing down the evil clown puffing and pouting and threatening: You know how to laugh in the face of a bully. Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, June 30, 2025

Wondering...

No one is making any bones about why so much of our tax dollars are being diverted from real human needs to create tax breaks for multi-billionaires. My question is, Why do these people who don't actually pay taxes need more tax breaks? Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Juneteenth!

I hear the outward celebrations of Juneteenth are being scaled down due to expectations of backlash from bigots, basically. In the current national atmosphere, it's understandable, and in some degree wise. Like not setting off fireworks in a dry meadow. But the historic moment is most certainly not canceled, it is not going away: Those who would celebrate in the streets--the descendants of those who were trafficked from their African homes over centuries, and their allies who acknowledge the... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, June 16, 2025

Involuntary Celibates... thinking about where it goes wrong.

It's in the idea that sex is a male's biological and social right. It's in the idea you know what is right for females, what women want, what will get them to want get together with you. So you try to dress up in that garb: the Nice Guy. And women seem to disdain that, don't find that sexy or interesting. They see a friend in that garb, not a lover. And you--you have no idea how important a male friend is a woman, in this world where a woman is constantly on guard from the male biological... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, June 13, 2025

Change Happens

I was reading some news from the UK today and it struck me how lucky that nation is to be so enriched with citizens bringing ideas and culture from so many parts of the world. It's how the world grows, how it's supposed to grow. I know there are many who deplore the changes to their traditional idea of their country, who mourn for the loss of uncontested values and beliefs, and I understand their resistance. They are so deeply attached to their histories and what they see and feel as their past... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, May 29, 2025

More About Being An American

It's one of the things that Americans abroad are most recognized by and very often criticized for: striking up conversation with total strangers! Yes, we do that. We do it abroad not realizing that what we do at home is, in fact, not done in many other societies in the world. Americans consider it a good thing, a friendly gesture, a sign that there is no threat here. We rarely if ever consider that in some other societies it is, in fact, the opposite. Americans are used to speaking our minds,... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, May 23, 2025

On Being American

My son-in-law, an Englishman by birth, has held a green card for several years. This week he took the test and the oath and now he is an American. This is a strange time for Americans, as the dominating force at the top is the most anti-American we have ever had to contend with. Even during the Gilded Age of the turn of the 19th/20th century, it was not as bad as this. It was bad for the poor and the working classes, but right now all the programs that were instituted for support and relief of... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, May 18, 2025

A sombre anniversary

It was this day, 45 years ago just around 8:30 in the morning, Mount St Helens erupted into the sky, and across the landscape. I've been watching and reading a series of day-by-day reports from the beginning of May up to that monumental event. I was there that day. We lived in Olympia, about 60 miles northwest of the mountain, an area which never saw more than a scattering of ash in the weeks following the initial eruption. There was another about a week later when we were in Portland, and that... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

It's the little things that matter

Thinking of the master criminal who gets nabbed in a traffic stop because a tail light was out. Thinking of Al Capone going to prison for fiddling his taxes. Thinking of my sister who got nailed for forging Mom's signature on a failed test paper because she spelled "Charlotte" with an "e" instead of an "o." Or how she got caught for stealing maraschino cherries because she left a bright red drop of juice on the white countertop. Wouldn't it be a thing if the current coup was brought down by the... Sign in to see full entry.

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