THOUGHTS

In this section are thoughts on whatever comes to mind, no limit on topics, written for this web site.  When I get the impulse, I’ll write thoughts and add them to what’s already here (I don’t plan on ever deleting any thoughts).  For each thought, there will be a title, length, the month and year I wrote it, a blurb on what it’s about, and a PDF of the  thought. 

To get a sense of who I am and how I see things and what's going on with me, you could read these thoughts in order beginning with "On Foucault,"  the June, 2007 thought. The thoughts are self-contained, however, and you can read them in any order.  

If the PDFs are oversize, adjust them to accommodate your reading preference.

Beginning in 2018, I'm going go put the latest thought at the top rather than at the bottom.

                      • On Being a Life Example to Others, 2pp., October, 2020.

                      At this writing, Amy Coney Barrett has completed two days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of her

                      confirmation as a justice on the Supreme Court.  Watching the televised proceedings, I was taken by Amy’s manner.  Read the
                      thought here.

                     • On Robert Firestone, 1 p., October, 2020.

                      I’m bigger on self-help literature than most people.  There’s the idea prevalent that reading science fiction or true crime is cool, but
                      giving time and effort to reading about what’s holding you back from living as well as possible is decidedly uncool.  That’s not how
                      I see it.   For example, consider the writings of psychologist Robert Firestone.  Read the thought here.

                    •  On What Some Songs Add Up To, 6 pp. September, 2020.

                     Last night, I watched a YouTube of singer Bobby Hatfield, who was half of a duo called The Righteous Brothers, performing
                     the song “Unchained Melody” on the Andy Williams television show on NBC back in 1965.  Read the thought here.

                     •  On Advice to a Young Teacher, 3 pp., September, 2020.

                     A former student of mine when I taught teacher education courses in the university is now in her late twenties and a high school
                     English teacher in the midwestern part of the United States.  She stays in touch with me by email.  This thought is a portion of my
                     most recent reply to her.   Read it here.

                   •  On Joanna Hogg, 2 pp.,  August, 2020.

                     Joanna Hogg is a British film director and screenwriter, and from the three films I’ve seen of hers—she’s made a total of four—she
                     is truly brilliant.   Read the complete review here.

                    •  On a Rejection Hook, 6 pp., July, 2020.                                 

                      As long as I can remember, I have been attempting to make sense of, and personally deal with, what I have come to call a
                      “rejection hook” that keeps me from living as well as I would like to.  Read the thought here.

                   • On Krzysztof Kieślowski, 3 pp., June, 2020.

                   •  On the Casey Anthony Murder Case, 3 pp., May, 2020.

                   I had a good experience with a couple of true-crime books by attorneys for the prosecution and defense in the Casey Anthony murder
                   trial in 2011.  Read the complete thought here.

                   •  On Saying Goodbye to Michael Jordan, 5 pp., May, 2020.

                  I’m sitting on my leather couch watching a sports documentary called “Jordan Rides the Bus,” and about twelve minutes into it,
                  it washes over me, “What the hell am I watching this silliness for?”   Read the complete thought here.

                  • On My Box Seat, 3 pp., May, 2020.

                    I find my dreams to be lessons on what is currently going on with me.  I’ll analyze last night’s dream and the meaning I gave it as
                    a way of suggesting that you do the same kind of thing with your dreams.   Read the analysis here.

 
                • On Towards and Avoids, 3 pp, April, 2020.

                  Recently, I’ve been dividing everything in my life into two categories.  Something or someone is either a Toward or an Avoid. 
                  Read the thought here.

                 • On COVID-19 and Curtis LeMay, 4 pp., March, 2020.

               As I write this, the world is under attack from a deadly strain of coronavirus called COVID-19.  People have been         

               warned to stay in their houses or apartments hunkered down in the face of this menacing enemy.  Tonight, hunkered down,
               I read  a biography  of a World War II air force general by the name of Curtis LeMay.  It prompted me to compare LeMay
               and COVID-19 as  killing machines.  Read the complete thought here.

        
               • On Rhiannon, 7 pp., March, 2020.

               An excerpt from an email to my fifteen-year-old daughter about the Welsh mythological figure Rhiannon and a popular song that
               was written about her.  Read the excerpt here.

            • On What It's Like to Be on Death Row, 1 p., March, 2020.

              Voice-over narration from the 1967 film “On Cold Blood,” about two men, Perry Smith and Dick Hickok, sentenced to     

              death for the murder of four members of a Kansas farm family,   Read the narration here.

                •  On Getting the Word About Mookie, 3 pp., March, 2020.

              At this writing, Mookie Betts, a star outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, has been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
              An old high school friend sent a mass email to “undisclosed recipients,” which includes me, with a link to an article
              about the trade he obviously liked.  Read the complete thought here.

                 • On Movie Messages, 6 pp., February, 2020.

                 Two movies that got big media hype this past year were screenwriter and director Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a
                 Time . . . in Hollywood” and a South Korean film, “Parasite.”   I was disappointed with both.  Read my review here.

               •  On “The White Crow,” 2 pp., January, 2020.                                                                                 

               As of last night, all I knew about the film “The White Crow” was that it was about 23-year-old Russian ballet dancer Rudolf
               Nureyev’s 1961 defection to the West in a Paris airport; I hadn’t read any reviews or anything.  Read my review here.

              • On Tennessee Williams, 1 p., January, 2020.

                Lines from a Williams play and poem.  Read them here.

             • On Being Vigilant for Life’s Lessons, 4 pp., January, 2020.

              • On “What About Bob,” 3 pp., December, 2019.

            I’ve learned to go with my impulses.  Even if they don’t make sense to me when they come up, invariably later on they do.   This was
            the case with the old movie “What About Bob?”  Read the thought here.

            • On Maren Ade, 2 pp., December, 2019.

               • On Ricard Jewell, 2 pp., December, 2019.

               Richard Jewell was a security guard suspected, falsely it turned out, of setting off a bomb at the site of the 1996 Olympic Games in
              Atlanta.  At this writing, a new book has just come out about him.  Read my comments on the book here.