Put Some Gay In Your Day, Dallas!

Craig McCartney

Twilight of the Zone

We’ve all done it.  We all do it.  Children do it to their parents.  Parents do it to their children.  Students do it to their teachers.  Congregants do it to their ministers.  And, married people, well we do it to each other all the time.  I’m tempted to call it “All-American,” but I suspect Asians, Europeans, Africans and Australians do […]

Another Rule Bites The Dust

Mother had rules about a lot of things.  Some were requirements, some were more like what would these days be called “best practices,” and some were suggestions.  I suspect most mothers had their versions of these things, and there was a great deal of overlap in the rule books. There was the no white after Labor Day rule, which in […]

When You’re Here, What’s Family?

“What are we going to do for dinner?”  The complexity of the process for answering that question depends entirely on how many folks compose that plural pronoun.   For example, when it’s just a married couple, the process is fairly simple.  At least that’s true when Karl and I make that almost daily decision.  If neither of us have a real […]

In An Autumn Swelter

With everything that’s going on these days, I have to put this week’s column into a bit of context.  What we have seen of the barbarism unleased in Israel and the ongoing war in Ukraine should put the political craziness that is going on in Washington into a bit of perspective.  But it is our backyard, and a subset of […]

Sorry About That, Chief

Chaos and control.  Control and chaos.  Controlled chaos.  Chaotic control. I suppose most of us who are deep into our adult lives have seen that pendulum swing back and forth through that particular spectrum.  With an apology for mixing my metaphors, sometimes the seesaw stays in a quasi-equilibrium with only one area of life being rather chaotic and the rest […]

Humiliation, American Style

According to my old friend, Miss Merriam Webster, the definition of humiliate is “to reduce (someone) to a lower position in one’s own eyes or others’ eyes:  to make (someone) ashamed or embarrassed.”  She lists disgrace, dishonor and discredit as synonyms, so it is fairly easy to understand why all those “dis” words have seemingly come together to make dis […]

The Unavoidable Binary

Once upon a time, commercial flying had a tinge of glamor to it.  Of course, that was back before all of the security measures were put in place, subjecting travelers to those scanning machines and pat downs, which under any other circumstance would be considered sexual assault. Part of that glamor was having a meal on the plane.  Of course, […]

America Needs You, Margaret Chase Smith

Oh, Lord, what have we come to?   I have diligently tried to keep two names out of my mouth, at least publicly.  One is Jada Pinkett Smith, for obvious reasons.  The other is Lauren Boebert. Unlike her sister Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Boebert seemingly grew up with few advantages, much less privileges.  No University of Georgia degree, no successful […]

A Kevin By Any Other Name

When the segregated schools of my childhood became the more integrated schools of junior and senior high school, there was quite a fuss, as one might imagine.  One of the more benign issues that surfaced was the names of the students.  In elementary school, pretty much all the teachers knew pretty much knew all the students, so there wasn’t a […]

Having It All?

One of those short videos came up on my social media feed this week made a realtor whose content I always find interesting.  She was speaking to the reality that, in buying a house, the three major components are location, amenities and cost. Basically, if one wants to buy a house with all the desired bells and whistles in a […]