tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82724644857630037172012-02-01T23:52:56.657-08:00Weekly musings on the arts and current events.TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.comBlogger1651100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-41046365884857469092011-12-31T11:33:00.000-08:002012-01-01T01:19:44.300-08:00

On this last day of 2011, I am preparing to leave my mountain top for an extended trip abroad, followed, I hope, by further travels in the spring.  The confluence of the New Year and my journeys seems like a natural moment to begin a hiatus from this blog.  Not that writing it is a hardship or terribly time consuming, but I want to clear the way for whatever commands my attention while I'm on

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-47717030961331695862011-12-24T09:57:00.000-08:002011-12-24T09:57:19.642-08:00

Our popular image of Santa Claus has evolved over the years primarily through the work of Clement Moore's (possibly plagiarized)1823 poem A Visit From St. Nicholas, the nineteenth century drawings by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly, and the twentieth century paintings by Haddon Sundblom for Coca-Cola. The one shown here is the first of Nast's Santas and it was drawn at the request of Abraham

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-79342431454303772472011-12-17T09:44:00.000-08:002011-12-17T12:21:27.922-08:00

One can't speak of a tradition of gadflies because gadflies defy tradition.  Nevertheless, there's a lineage that begins with Socrates (The unexamined life is not worth living.), and continues through Dr. Samuel Johnson (Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. ),  Jonathan Swift (When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-11529931880076172912011-12-10T11:49:00.000-08:002011-12-11T08:00:53.318-08:00

As a teacher, I rarely got to go to elaborate office parties. Ours tended to be homely on-campus affairs catered by a low bid Mexican restaurant whose tamales and enchiladas were crunchy at the bottom but ominously cool in the middle. There was, of course, no alcohol served, which made the principal's long iteration of thanks to those who helped deck the cafeteria all the more insufferable.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-32698079429245107652011-12-03T08:19:00.001-08:002011-12-03T09:16:13.957-08:00

As the detritus ofthe 99% occupations is swept into dumpsters, the movement appears to be sinking. No leadership or agenda emerged during the protests. Quite the contrary, the occupiers seemed to lose sightof their broader goals, and let the symbolism of seizing public parks become their actual and only consensual objective. We also learned this week that the Tea Party's popularity has ebbed

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-44789116227310109212011-11-26T08:51:00.000-08:002011-11-26T08:53:19.500-08:00

I'm part of the throng that's jamming the freeways on this holiday weekend. Please come back next week.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-50634693383055398832011-11-19T09:06:00.000-08:002011-11-19T09:34:31.352-08:00

Autumn at its most stark. My mountain has been visited by a frigid cloud and I can't see farther than a tree or two past my property line. The black oaks' leaves are yellow and they alone find something to glimmer about in the subdued morning light. Our October snow was untimely and warm days followed and melted it, but now there's no question that winter is nigh.Thanksgiving is a harvest holiday

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-73246364566495288362011-11-12T08:17:00.000-08:002011-11-12T08:19:14.612-08:00

My motherboard bit the dust and now I'm consumed with recovering and reinstalling. Please come back next week.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-28947432905418980392011-11-05T10:09:00.000-07:002011-11-05T12:44:20.654-07:00

One year from now we will be voting for President. I'm reluctant to write another word.There may have been a time that I looked forward to national races, but I can't recall when. We have a full year of punditry and predictions to look forward to, together with equivocations, clarifications, and gaffes--and all done in deadly earnest.We'll no doubt witness a blizzard of attacks and allegations,

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-13597460431018041872011-10-29T14:47:00.000-07:002011-10-29T14:56:49.777-07:00

Sometimes we fly into the maw of our fears. On Halloween, we masquerade as demons. At the movies, we cry "Bring it" to those that would frighten us. And then there's trick-or-treating, when we let children forget everything we've taught them about candy from strangers.The story of Hansel and Gretel is for a different time of year. The gingerbread home, bedecked with chocolates, sugared fruits,

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-8910622481944119372011-10-22T10:15:00.000-07:002011-10-22T10:16:32.283-07:00

Please come back next week for a Halloween posting.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-82348180035950048392011-10-15T10:46:00.000-07:002011-10-16T08:15:07.548-07:00

Religion rears its ugly head. In Egypt, Muslims have attacked Coptic Christians. And when the latter demonstrated peacefully in protest, elements of Egypt's military regime attacked them again. In Libya, a Jew returning from twenty years of exile to restore a synagogue, was assaulted and driven back into exile. The Arab Spring, with its hoped for flowering of democracy, is fast descending into an

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-82647757413873885112011-10-08T14:23:00.000-07:002011-10-08T15:04:27.574-07:00

Occupy Wall Street continues and is spreading to other cities. The press has elevated it from a local act of civil disobedience to an inchoate national movement. Pundits now wonder aloud if this isn't the start of a force to countermand the Tea Party. Older pundits have likened the current protest's style and ambiance to that of Viet Nam era demonstrations at their naughtiest, with

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-25927987877437744502011-10-01T08:41:00.000-07:002011-10-04T20:38:06.901-07:00

Thursday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. On the Hebrew calendar, this is 5772. Part of the afternoon observance is a service called Tashlikh which means to cast away. This is performed at a body of water where there are fish: in my case, Big Bear Lake. After a few prayers and meditations, the participants shake bread crumbs out of their pockets and into the water, symbolically casting

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-57407507697960205652011-09-24T09:00:00.000-07:002011-09-24T09:15:11.385-07:00

Around the turn of the century, the last century that is, the Cornish art colony in upper New Hampshire thrived. About eighty artists and notables were associated with this retreat, which was more or less organized by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and the painter Thomas Wilmer Dewing. First artists and architects, next writers, and then other talented and accomplished people, along with the

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-39236233887414869782011-09-17T09:05:00.000-07:002011-09-17T09:14:23.720-07:00

There's something defeatist in the prompt drydocking of the speedboats on my mountain lake. Labor Day has passed, but we have one final weekend of summer, and besides, it won't get cold for many more weeks, barring a precipitous snowfall. Can't we pretend it's summer for just a bit longer?But the fireplaces are already ablaze, and while the mornings may not bite the earlobes just yet, there is a

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-17707928360451210382011-09-10T07:57:00.000-07:002011-09-10T08:04:08.708-07:00

Everywhere people are remembering where they were on this day ten years ago. It's easy to recall how we first heard the news, but harder to think of where we were as a nation before the Twin Towers, before the second Iraq war, before the Afghanistan adventure, before our crushing budget deficits, before a six fold increase in the price of gold, before the Tsunami, before the near sinking of New

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-12207085800785516372011-09-03T08:48:00.000-07:002011-09-03T21:53:10.222-07:00

It's happened again. I got into a conversation with a conservative friend and found myself defending labor unions. To his credit, my friend conceded that unions were necessary in the last century to defend workers from oppressive corporations. But today, he says, they only seek to coddle the lazy and prevent social and economic progress. Gently, I tried to remind him that unions were a partner

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-6646404029631287072011-08-27T09:25:00.001-07:002011-08-27T10:01:51.028-07:00

Remember in The Godfather how young Michael Corleone first appears, a dignified and principled Army captain who disdains the workings of the Cosa Nostra? But when his family is threatened, Michael transforms into a ruthless Mafia don with a code of honor that, for all its rituals and sanctimony, is chaotic and evil. A similar character-driven drama is playing out in Syria where the son and

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-39391770698878598602011-08-20T10:44:00.000-07:002011-08-21T18:36:54.733-07:00

Where is the touchstone of memory? A friend's father had a charming quirk by which he discounted all changes to his environs. Thus the new Walmart was only squatting on Mr. Stillman's farm, and the sleek Exxon was just a mask fitted over the old general store with its hand cranked gas pump. For people of my generation, an implanted memory abides from our first schoolbooks of Dick and Jane, Baby

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-63226699777784165572011-08-13T07:50:00.000-07:002011-08-13T08:16:16.848-07:00

If I were a political creature, I'd be tempted to start a new movement, or perhaps a party, and call it AARM: Angry, Abandoned, Radicalized Middle. This week saw two strong rebukes to our political system, first by the historic downgrading of American debt, and next by a resounding market slump. Both have been attributed to the recent debt deal in Congress that came up short of its goals and

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-9579019643539515512011-08-06T10:10:00.000-07:002011-08-06T10:11:17.326-07:00

Please come back next week.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-2844675009494231382011-07-28T13:11:00.000-07:002011-07-30T07:04:50.542-07:00

Until the word "serenely", Lord Byron's poem seems to prophesy Amy Winehouse. Perhaps the last eight lines are also apt, if we read them as what lies beneath her shadows. Certainly Amy and her art present a nocturnal beauty.She was a flawed creature who thought herself ugly and who wrote "You Know I'm No Good." She was wrong.She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies,

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-89297249400734816122011-07-22T17:08:00.000-07:002011-07-23T07:47:12.552-07:00

Among the more memorable things that President Ronald Reagan said is his Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." The irony is that he didn't need to say it because the GOP has long been loathe to air its laundry in public.Their solidarity has not always served them well. George W. Bush received near unanimous party support as he cut taxes while waging a war of

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-89101554099842541872011-07-16T07:33:00.000-07:002011-07-16T09:12:02.117-07:00

In Lyon, across from the Musée des Beaux Arts, stands this fountain by Frederic Bartholdi. If his name rings a bell, it's because he sculpted the Statue of Liberty. It depicts France as a woman riding a chariot and driving four hard charging horses. They represent the four great rivers that flow through the nation, which are, I think, the Seine, Rhone, Garonne, and Loire, but I'm just a tourist

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-54426163897185223762011-07-09T06:10:00.000-07:002011-07-09T07:41:45.658-07:00

Watching the Tour De France these day brings back my own just concluded bicycle trip in France, past similar beige colored stone buildings in immaculate little wine villages in Burgundy. It was a wonderful vacation, although I almost wish I hadn't extended it for three days in Paris. This is the high season which means a large share of the twenty six million tourists who visit Paris each year

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-69147261573160238612011-06-11T09:57:00.000-07:002011-06-11T11:00:13.907-07:00

My former colleagues at Huntington Park High School, will find out Monday if they've been rehired. The rest will have to pack up and clear out. My heart grieves for these fine people who've been bulldozed by a system that values the appearance of sweeping reform above the hard, incremental work of actual achievement. As for me, I am leaving for France and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-22556331728124303062011-06-04T07:38:00.000-07:002011-06-04T08:09:01.707-07:00

The winter, my first real one in many years, was magical in the mountains, with trees and hillcrests clad in heavy snow and framed by deep blue skies. But now the trees are in full leaf and my dog finds the sun on the deck well to her liking. Summer's almost here at Lake Arrowhead and I'm thinking of getting a little boat.This artist is new to me: Theo Booth. Here he's spun a fantasy that

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-40237340792780398042011-05-27T01:27:00.000-07:002011-05-27T13:53:05.645-07:00

This month we did not witness the predicted rapture, but we did see the fall of some transgressors. From mere boors, like the braggart Arnold Schwarzenegger and the insufferable John Ensign, to monsters like the genocidal Ratko Mladic and the sanctimonious Osama Bin Laden, May brought a welcome breath of justice.But justice can be a meager dish. None of these downfalls improves our lot. From none

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-86695981792640677352011-05-21T09:05:00.000-07:002011-05-21T09:07:10.929-07:00

I'm on the road, visiting friends in Oregon, and unable to post. Please come back next week.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-22711338976680037952011-05-13T11:05:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:56:06.188-07:00

The school where I taught for nearly twenty years, Huntington Park Senior High, is being reconstituted. This means that everyone--the administrators, the teachers, the clerical, maintenance, cafeteria, and security personnel, every one of them--has been given notice. If they want their jobs back, they must reapply, and the rules state that only half of them can be rehired.Disruption for the

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-43386134053540961272011-05-06T23:16:00.000-07:002011-05-07T14:26:48.792-07:00

At times our public discourse feels empty. Osama Bin Laden was killed late Sunday night, and since then very little print or air time has been given to any other story. And yet, the content of these articles and pronouncements has largely been trivialities, cavils, and conspiracies. Very few have ventured into the deeper water of the historical significance of his life and death.His demise has

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-32045380606497836992011-04-30T09:41:00.000-07:002011-04-30T10:02:32.090-07:00

Meteorologists work with models whereby they factor in variables to project consequent effects. But tornadoes, like earthquakes, defy prediction, so the models don't work, at least not well.Scientists, unlike their critics, prefer not to say things they can't substantiate, and therefore they are reluctant to attribute this season's terrible spate of tornadoes to global climate change. As Andrew

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-1358984007833269262011-04-23T08:41:00.000-07:002011-04-23T09:42:53.470-07:00

This week, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wrested control of the Los Angeles Dodgers from owner Frank McCourt because of the team's shaky finances occasioned by the latter's messy divorce. There are many Southern Californians who can't connect with the Dodgers anymore. Indeed, season ticket sales have plunged. The stadium, inconveniently located and poorly designed, has grown old

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-81394459188599901662011-04-16T08:14:00.000-07:002011-04-16T17:38:14.902-07:00

This month, an NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that while sixty one per cent of us say we want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, most of us change our minds once we're told of the personal sacrifices that it would entail. It drops to just twenty seven per cent who still wish to pay the piper. Ever since Lyndon Johnson's "guns and butter " politics, our leaders have competed

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-6360231457116413392011-04-09T09:00:00.000-07:002011-04-09T09:01:10.490-07:00

Please come back next weekend.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-91032555453151868192011-04-02T09:15:00.000-07:002011-04-02T12:36:59.100-07:00

Two senseless attacks, within hours of each other, 7500 miles apart. A mob of religious fanatics in Afghanistan, incensed over the burning of a Koran by a publicity seeking crackpot in Florida, attacked a United Nations compound, (apparently unable to distinguish the UN from the US), and killed everyone they could lay their hands on. In Los Angeles, two Dodgers fans attacked some Giants fans

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-74201096521036120472011-03-26T08:03:00.000-07:002011-03-26T09:15:56.467-07:00

On paper, it's spring, but we've had snow off and on for a week. No complaint. The transformation of the landscape that I see upon awakening after a night of snowfall is magic, pure and simple. I can no longer ski, so shoveling has become my winter sport of choice. Again, no complaint. George Wesley Bellows is associated with The Ashcan School of early twentieth century American art. He painted

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-49221421661888889322011-03-18T16:05:00.000-07:002011-03-19T13:06:36.660-07:00

This weekend is Purim, the raucous celebration of the deliverance of the Jews from Persian slaughter in Biblical times. The story begins with King Ahasuerus reasserting male dominion over women throughout his vast kingdom, and in his own palace, by issuing a decree and by banishing his recalcitrant queen, Vashti.The heroine of the tale is Esther, his new queen who hides her Jewish identity. When

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-50832380083512483312011-03-12T09:02:00.000-08:002011-03-12T10:06:20.982-08:00

I have a vague memory of sitting at the feet of a very old black man at the YMCA long ago to listen to his memories of the previous century when he was born into slavery somewhere in the deep south. He was bald, wrinkled, and tiny, but his eyes were alert and his sense of humor had not been diminished by the years. That's all I can remember; none of his stories have abided in me. The fault is

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-66920828224503419812011-03-05T09:45:00.001-08:002011-03-05T09:45:33.670-08:00

Please come back next week.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-60449981690432461722011-02-26T08:49:00.000-08:002011-02-26T09:15:55.081-08:00

I've waited for a day like this, four thousand feet above the snow line, to feel the cold that I came to the mountains for. Fog wrapped my house from high on the slope to the valley beneath, swirled by a noisy wind. Then the flakes began to fall as though the fog had grown too cold to hover any longer. Color drained from the world leaving only shape to distinguish between pine needle and branch

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-27369361910311687432011-02-19T08:52:00.000-08:002011-02-19T09:10:05.664-08:00

This week I read Patti Smith's Just Kids. It's a memoir of when she and her lover, Robert Mapplethorpe, were starving and directionless artists in New York City. It's a remarkable book and I recommend it.I don't wish to review it and I'm not prepared to write a consideration of either her music or his photographs. I just want to share a few impressions and some quotes.When they met, they had not

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-50263663389475497792011-02-11T10:33:00.000-08:002011-02-11T22:01:02.515-08:00

On the day Hosni Mubarak stepped down, I got to wondering about the Rosetta Stone: what does it actually say? Here's an excerpt:Since King Ptolemy...being benevolently disposed towards the gods, has dedicated to the temples revenues in money and corn, and has undertaken much outlay to bring Egypt into prosperity, and to establish the temples, and has been generous with all his own means, and of

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-35644707550134245012011-02-05T08:07:00.001-08:002011-02-05T09:11:26.337-08:00

A man in an ill fitting Superman suit sits deep in thought amid the trappings of a Valentine's Day party, or perhaps a Las Vegas style review. He is lit from two directions: hot artificial light strikes him from within the room, and gray-dawn from the window. He lacks the musculature, the virility, the confidence, or the hair of a surrogate superhero. His shadow of a beard, his wrinkled costume,

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-89694302321432539662011-01-29T09:46:00.000-08:002011-01-29T10:54:51.130-08:00

I'm partial to Raphael and therefore much intrigued by the strange story that broke this week about his self-portrait. The painting on the left hangs at the Uffizi Museum in Florence and has long been acknowledged as Raphael by his own hand. But now its authenticity is challenged by the re-emergence from a bank vault of the painting on the right, which art historians deem a better likeness--he

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-72760839058643194162011-01-22T10:36:00.000-08:002011-01-23T06:50:24.925-08:00

I asked a friend in Pakistan what he thought of the revolution in Tunisia. His reply: "In Pakistan, people saw that revolution as an augury, as it is also needed here in Pakistan very badly, but the people of Pakistan (are) so enfeebled by our politicians that they actually have no strength to do it... People there have that luxury to protest and revolt...Here, a common man has to fight for his

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-36422103076592677172011-01-11T08:30:00.000-08:002011-01-11T08:54:55.073-08:00

I wish I could start a movement to vote against any candidate who uses incendiary language, who denounces the opposition as unpatriotic or ungodly, who makes a virtue out of refusing to listen to those who disagree, or who demonizes those who are willing to meet opponents halfway. It used to be called the wisdom of Solomon: to see both sides of an argument. But nowadays such wisdom is going out

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-61726920634349109442011-01-08T09:18:00.000-08:002011-01-08T09:40:57.638-08:00

A new bowdlerized edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from a publisher named, significantly, NewSouth, was announced this month. In it the word nigger, which appears 219 times, is replaced by slave. Now, they say, English teachers will be able to read it aloud in class without embarrassment.Some of the arguments in defense of the change, advanced by editor and Mark Twain scholar Allen

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-59170971747390128122011-01-01T08:41:00.000-08:002011-01-01T09:01:50.305-08:00

The relativity of time is beyond our ken; the concept is too vast. But the subjectivity of time is apprehensible to every child who has ever counted down the days till Christmas.And it only gets worse as we age. The years lose their character and permanence once we've stopped growing. How is it possible that today begins a new year and yet another decade?Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-66490848369416576972010-12-17T21:44:00.000-08:002010-12-18T07:14:22.867-08:00

For 33 years, Haddon Sundblom painted advertisements for Coca -Cola that featured Santa Claus. If he didn't create the image of the red-suited, white-bearded, rotund Santa, he certainly fixed it forever in our imaginations.Sundblom was a highly successful commercial artist and art teacher. In addition to Coke, he drew for Aunt Jemima, Quaker Oats, Cashmere Bouquet, and Playboy, to name a few.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-28769483051737693432010-12-11T08:46:00.000-08:002010-12-11T10:47:49.359-08:00

No doubt a watershed moment has been lost. The tax cuts and unemployment benefits compromise, struck by the President with Senate Republican leader McConnell, is at best a long odds gamble, and at worst a capitulation to plutocracy. Even with the nation's attention turned to the need for deficit reduction, Democrats found their voices simply weren't loud enough to denounce Republican advocacy of

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-57983953316042447462010-12-04T07:25:00.000-08:002010-12-04T07:41:25.169-08:00

To some, Hanukkah feels inauthentic, even meretricious. It's a lesser, non-Biblical holiday, that Jews largely ignored for many years. American Jewry, however, has embraced it with such enthusiasm, that it is now the most public of all Jewish observances in the United States.Why? Certainly, its synchronicity with Christmas.In Christian-majority America, Jewish children, like myself, used to be

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-30858777544925130632010-11-20T06:19:00.000-08:002010-11-20T12:59:10.848-08:00

A friend wrote the other day that he is filled with gratitude, and I wrote back that I am, too. But so many people I know are facing the exigencies of unemployment, lack of health insurance, and diminished prospects for personal fulfillment.A headline today says that labor unions are increasingly accepting two tiered systems of compensation. Reading the article, we quickly learn that it is

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-83615484625890666472010-11-13T08:41:00.000-08:002010-11-13T09:17:26.476-08:00

The Deficit Commission report, we are told, is DOA. Opponents of one point will combine with opponents of other points to bury it. We hear conservatives dogmatically denounce changes in the tax code, even while liberals object that those changes would be a net gain for the wealthy. And as for liberals, proposed cuts in Social Security and Medicare are, as usual, non-starters.This week we saw our

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-29017876678458369492010-11-06T07:34:00.001-07:002010-11-06T12:55:23.783-07:00

Autumn is in full vigor here in the San Bernardino Mountains. It is my favorite season, partly because its apex is the briefest. The leaves outside my window present a rich palette, but the rain predicted for later today and tomorrow may knock them all to the ground, leaving us to contemplate the coming of winter.Perhaps that contemplation is the meaning of autumn: a time to draw inward and come

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-18999807105918265192010-10-30T07:28:00.000-07:002011-10-29T23:49:23.583-07:00

At this time of year, we blow the dust off memento mori, rewatch gruesome horror movies, and encourage children to disguise themselves as creatures of the dark. Halloween and El Dia de los Muertos make light of death, the former with candy to avert diabolical mischief, the latter with picnics and piňatas amid gravestones.Are we fortifying ourselves against fear, or simply whistling past the

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-31274792524021970512010-10-23T08:43:00.000-07:002010-10-23T09:15:34.962-07:00

The widely anticipated retaking of Congress by Republicans has given me hope that finally there will be some clarity on the American political landscape. Divisions among Democrats and Republicans, and among Republicans and Republicans, have left us all in a fog.We have seen President Obama's popularity diminish precipitously, but there's no consensus as to why. He's roundly criticized by voices

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-72808003349267284622010-10-16T07:00:00.000-07:002011-05-13T11:05:34.010-07:00

So much about romance is paradoxical. We probe the mystery of the other, and yet we want that other, along with parts of ourselves, to remain mysterious. It's as if knowing imperils passion.Consider this poem and this painting together: do they agree, do they contradict, or do they do both?Womanisers by John Press (1920-2007)Adulterers and customers of whoresAnd cunning takers of virginitiesCaper

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-1270266184012945662010-10-09T05:57:00.000-07:002010-10-09T06:59:46.891-07:00

The story goes that Cecil B. DeMille and W.C. Fields were neighbors. DeMille lived at the summit of DeMille Drive in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Fields' home was just below, connected by a path that was seldom used since they hated each other. During World War II, DeMille was a Volunteer Air Raid Warden. He had an official white helmet, flashlight, and first aid kit, and he'd scurry about

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-55175473246838093072010-10-02T09:56:00.000-07:002010-10-02T10:55:12.197-07:00

My new home in the mountains has an eastern view, and because I am a morning person, I've lately been musing about sunrises. I wondered why they seem to happen more quickly than sunsets. This led me to collect and to form some thoughts about sunrises and sunsets.• Look, love, what envious streaksDo lace the severing clouds in yonder east:Night's candles are burnt out, and the jocund dayStands

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-38419271055738605172010-09-25T08:22:00.000-07:002010-09-25T08:37:54.133-07:00

Back in the sixties, a piece of business jargon became current and made its way into respected dictionaries: incentivize. We encounter this odious word nowadays in two national discussions: ( 1) whether cutting taxes will motivate employers to hire, and (2) whether offering bonuses to teachers will raise students' test scores. The first is one of many issues upon which economists will forever

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-43219652804934554672010-09-16T20:07:00.000-07:002010-09-17T08:00:38.525-07:00

The Day of AtonementA poem without a stopping point by this blogger.Is it the day that atones,Or those who observe it?The day.Is fasting a penance,(just two lousy meals; might be good for you),Or a reminder of how easy we have it?How easy.Should we feel guilty when it's over,Or absolved?Guilty.Do we need to spend this day in a stale synagogue,Droning prayers.Or can we atone by ourselves?Good

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-8853172406991110462010-09-06T07:39:00.000-07:002010-09-07T13:39:51.166-07:00

A steady voice in support of fiscal stimuli has been Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. He recently compared our present stalled recovery with that of 1938, when President Roosevelt heeded those calling for a balanced budget, in an election year that boded ill for the Democrats, and cut the legs out from under his program. Krugman wrote: "I had hoped that we would do better this time. But it turns out

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-75672566406156354242010-08-21T05:14:00.000-07:002010-08-21T05:34:09.104-07:00

TallTchr is traveling this week and moving shortly thereafter. With everything in boxes, and DSL connection precipitately terminated, it seems best to take a brief vacation from blogging. So the plan right now is to make no new postings until the Saturday after Labor Day: 9/11. Photo from The Seattle Times.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-9838797850141173662010-08-12T20:51:00.000-07:002010-08-14T22:19:25.873-07:00

My Virgil in plumbing the Inferno of Chicago politics was the columnist Mike Royko. He better than anyone understood the Chicago machine's intricate trade-offs between efficacy and corruption in "the city that works".I thought of Royko this week with the passing of another Chicagoan, Dan Rostenkowski. Royko didn't like him, even though they hailed from the same neighborhood and ethnicity. But

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-41492473163761103152010-08-07T15:55:00.000-07:002010-08-07T15:56:12.620-07:00

Please come back next week.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-84092953196244800212010-07-31T12:54:00.000-07:002010-07-31T13:06:47.873-07:00

Paintings of the beach get no respect. After all, many are just two negative spaces joined by a line of foam. Some have bathers and strollers in them, but the summer sun precludes any close examination of faces. Besides, how much profundity can we expect in scenes of recreation during felicitous weather?At this time of year, when I was a boy, I spent all my afternoons at the beach in Holland,

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-28298264396601644192010-07-24T07:39:00.000-07:002010-07-24T08:38:36.812-07:00

This week, the President signed into law a major financial markets reform bill and an extension of unemployment benefits. The news, however, was all about Shirley Sherrod, a woman whose reputation was attacked by a provocateur named Andrew Breitbart.The story might never have broken in an earlier age, before the rumor mill was digitalized and newspapers still checked their facts. It also might

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-2015156844203576652010-07-17T05:58:00.000-07:002010-07-17T07:02:51.495-07:00

In Russia this week, a fourteen month trial ended with the conviction of the curators of the "Forbidden Art" exhibit at the Andrei Sakahrov Museum. The charge against them, for which they were fined but not imprisoned, was "inciting religious hatred." In 2007, Yuri Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev gathered some twenty iconoclastic works that had been banned from other exhibitions over the previous

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-6870584561062735812010-07-10T10:51:00.000-07:002010-12-18T22:48:06.628-08:00

The Three Soldiers statue was in the news this week. Its patina, which had turned bluish-green after years of weather and handling by visitors, has been restored. There are people who love this statue, but I am not one of them.The Wall is the most visited memorial in Washington, DC., and perhaps the most revered. Its power lies in its understatement. I'm sure I don't have to describe it for you,

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-59244169229049361522010-07-03T10:24:00.000-07:002010-07-11T14:47:13.422-07:00

Since retiring last spring, I've spent part of my unaccustomed leisure renting films. A few have been especially moving. They've probably never played in any American multiplexes, or been promoted in the papers, so I thought I'd share their titles and why I liked them.Paris 36 (Belgium, 2008). Backstage fables are a staple--the show must go on!--and they still work. 36 refers to the year 1936;

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-21718675338697246532010-06-26T07:01:00.000-07:002010-06-26T11:10:04.570-07:00

When General Stanley McChrystal was relieved of his command this week, many of us thought of Douglas MacArthur. The distinction was immediately drawn that, whereas MacArthur was dismissed for differing with President Truman about the limits of his Korean War mission, there were no such policy differences between McChrystal and President Obama.While both generals could be crusty and blunt with

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-27076721138735329212010-06-19T10:42:00.000-07:002010-06-19T20:15:54.030-07:00

It is unseemly to rejoice in the misfortune of others, especially those who have done us no personal harm. Unseemly, but human nevertheless.Such was my mirth in reading this week that "Painter of Light" Thomas Kinkade had filed for bankruptcy on June 2 and been arrested for drunk driving nine days later.I have no cause to bear him ill other than his two egregious offences against my sensibilities

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-89315935494747325772010-06-12T00:00:00.000-07:002010-07-11T14:46:38.833-07:00

Pliny the Elder (23-79 C.E.) was the first to record the practice, which he learned from Roman sailors.Saint Bede the Venerable, around the year 731, may have been the first to set down the phrase: "Pour oil on troubled water." Bede related the story of Saint Aidan (d. 651), giving a cruse of oil to a young seafaring priest to calm the waves if they got rough.It actually works. Here is a link to

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-90025424763049183552010-06-06T07:21:00.001-07:002010-06-06T07:21:37.126-07:00

Please come back next weekend.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-59784842633886060482010-05-28T08:07:00.000-07:002010-07-11T14:47:51.762-07:00

While driving a busy thoroughfare last week, I saw an oncoming delivery truck straddle both lanes and stop, purposely blocking all traffic behind it. The driver jumped out and herded a mother mallard, with her half dozen or so ducklings, across the street to safety. Horns beeped in tribute to the deliveryman's husbandry.This is the hatchling season. We are reminded of that by pictures of

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-71610946712466693742010-05-23T07:19:00.000-07:002010-05-28T08:49:19.212-07:00

Abraham Maslow, the man who codified our hierarchy of needs, is credited with an important witticism: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." It is a good answer to idealogues such as the new Republican candidate for senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul.Dr. Paul has been bloodied in interviews, following his victory last Tuesday, for his libertarian views of

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-69818922951811765152010-05-15T06:18:00.000-07:002010-05-28T08:51:42.879-07:00

My third day in the San Bernadino mountains and I'm getting wise to the pattern. The skies have clouded up in the afternoons, permitting sunlight on one grove but not on its neighbor. Momentarily, rain falls--hardly enough to spot my car. But again today the dawn is clear, and the morning sky, crystalline and blue. The water's surface faithfully reflects the trees; the lake is still asleep. And

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-26845689214974942602010-05-08T06:45:00.000-07:002010-07-11T14:49:00.033-07:00

Shakespeare cast his bitterest comedy with Greeks and Trojans. Troilus and Cressida travesties Homer and takes down all conventional notions of what Poe would later call "the glory that was Greece." The play anticipates the Theatre of the Absurd by over three centuries, and the financial crisis facing Greece, by four.The Greek government, having winked at wealthy tax cheats and lied to its

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-45162665521699445962010-04-29T07:48:00.000-07:002010-07-11T14:48:23.231-07:00

It is the method of this blog to be brief and to pair thoughts with images. I have seldom been able to write about what I know best, public education, under these self imposed strictures. But I can not ignore what is happening in my former school district, Los Angeles Unified, where thousands of teachers have been laid off and the school year has been shortened.I retired seven weeks ago, in part,

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-16454627944236920992010-04-25T11:13:00.001-07:002010-04-25T11:13:39.262-07:00

Please come back next week.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-18047046175424473532010-04-16T12:47:00.001-07:002010-07-11T14:50:10.049-07:00

An existential question: what would you do? A flock of bald headed eagles--a flock, mind you--appears before your eyes. Four perch on ghostly wooden pilings, the ruins of a washed away pier on Puget Sound. A fifth circles above, joyriding on the April breeze during a sun shower. At hand are a pair of binoculars and a small camera. Which do you choose? The binoculars, to peer into the eyes of the

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-39411495860003452492010-04-09T21:48:00.000-07:002010-06-29T08:14:41.156-07:00

About the same time that Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia was apologizing for neglecting to mention slavery in his Confederate History Month proclamation, the Virgina Museum of Fine Arts announced a new acquisition: Street Corner by Phillip Evergood. The painting is evidence that not everyone in Virginia is an atavist.The way cultures remember their history stamps their character. The war still

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-27251642349590664142010-04-03T08:46:00.000-07:002010-06-29T08:15:40.023-07:00

Has Holy Week ever seen such a holy mess? When we hear the word "revelation" we no longer think of The Apocolypse in the Bible, but of fresh allegations against Church hierarchy. Their judgment was further called into question when a senior Vatican priest, at Good Friday mass, drew a very poor analogy between criticism of Church leaders and anti-Semitism. As if priests who abuse children, and

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-90635691786558410162010-03-28T08:01:00.000-07:002010-06-29T08:17:09.561-07:00

Before the Beatles, I had the typical American notion that the British were hidebound traditionalists. Sir Alfred James Munnings (1878-1959) might well have been a case in point. As president of the Royal Academy of Art, he famously, and perhaps drunkenly, took to the airwaves to denounce Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso for corrupting art. He went on to claim this expurgated exchange with Sir

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-52132576793081442152010-03-20T10:31:00.000-07:002010-07-04T08:25:05.681-07:00

The cartoon cel shown here is of Mammy Two Shoes, a recurring character from the Tom and Jerry series. Her appearances have been mostly edited out of current versions, replaced by a skinny white maid. She was based on Academy Award winning actress Hattie McDaniel who played Mammy in Gone With the Wind (1939). At the time of her Oscar, the NAACP was critical of Hattie, saying she perpetuated the

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-49581083683252391032010-03-13T07:30:00.000-08:002010-06-29T08:20:00.344-07:00

A sad little woman from Pennsylvania, who plucked out her eyebrows and penciled in new ones, took a trip to Holland that changed her life. She met a Muslim gentleman who offered her unaccustomed respect. She converted to Islam. After all her disappointments and bereavements, her failed suicide attempt, and the burden of caring for her elderly mother, she found meaning for her life in violent

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-3685536684889239872010-03-05T20:23:00.000-08:002010-06-29T08:21:44.276-07:00

This portrait of Elizabeth I by an unknown artist has changed over time. Deterioration of the strange looking bouquet in her hand has revealed that the portraitist originally intended that she be seen holding a snake. The symbolism of such a curious prop has been lost to us. Some think the snake was an emblem of wisdom and judgment. Others remind us that in Christian tradition the serpent is

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-38739247264718796402010-02-26T16:14:00.001-08:002010-06-29T08:13:10.770-07:00

Thirty five years ago, a collector named Dirk Hannema found and purchased this painting because he was "absolutely certain" it was a Van Gogh. However, Hannema had been famously duped by a fake Vermeer, so nobody was going to take his word for it. This week, Le Blute-Fin Mill has finally been added to the canon of nearly nine hundred works of the world's most admired painter.We all like to second

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-56010197997964001282010-02-20T09:34:00.000-08:002010-06-29T08:22:59.972-07:00

I scratch my head at the number of vampire stories that appear each year. What else is there to be said about Dracula and his descendents? And yet this chiaroscuro by Edvard Munch catches my eye. How many dreams are forgotten by morning? How many more are gone by the afternoon? But some dread images hang on for a lifetime. Artists have long kept track of their nightmares, recording them on paper

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-69443260953561583002010-02-14T00:35:00.000-08:002010-02-14T00:38:22.007-08:00

Talltchr is on the road and won't be able to blog this week. Come back next Saturday.

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-7811810401497545822010-02-06T13:56:00.000-08:002010-06-29T08:24:41.799-07:00

Ninety nine years ago today, two boys were born a few miles apart in Illinois. One grew up to be an actor, a governor, and the 40th President of the United States. The other, my father, worked for the Roosevelt administration during the depression and World War II and then became a retailer in Chicago.I am not a believer in Astrology, and I don't know whether either man fits the profile of an

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-48281159869804447072010-01-30T13:02:00.000-08:002010-06-29T08:27:40.219-07:00

On the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Catcher in the Rye, columnist George F. Will wrote a denunciation of the book for teaching a generation to whine and pout. He railed further against Leonard Bernstein for investing his gangsters, in West Side Story, with Holden Caulfield like disaffection. Will also took a swipe at those critics who like the book for confusing self-absorption with

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-44531629285945566232010-01-23T09:01:00.000-08:002010-06-29T08:29:26.292-07:00

This week the skies were generous over drought stricken Southern California. Some of my neighbors complained, saying rain makes them blue, but I opened the windows so I could listen to it fall. The fire in my fireplace occasionally crackled and hissed when drops made their way down the chimney. However, the thunder frightened my dog enough that she battered her way out of the yard while I was at

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-3260704495045260632010-01-16T07:53:00.000-08:002010-07-04T07:52:27.559-07:00

Vassar College has a Haiti Project by which the students purchase paintings directly from Haitian artists, sell them in the U.S., and then return the proceeds to Haiti to support a mountain village called Chemaitre. In the wake of the present emergency, the Project has announced it will donate to earthquake relief more generally. Many of its affiliated artists, galleries, and artisans live in

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-21096840333659517522010-01-09T10:11:00.000-08:002010-07-04T07:56:05.273-07:00

Three airplane stories: the failed Nigerian suicide bomber whose flight, thank heaven, made it to Detroit; the Chinese doctoral student who evacuated Newark's airport when he breached security to give his girlfriend an extra kiss; and the fifty six year old Gilligan's Island fan whose adolescent humor resulted in his Hawaii flight turning back to Portland. We are so easily distracted, so in

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-84348908576084344512010-01-02T10:49:00.000-08:002010-07-11T14:52:03.583-07:00

Can we support public education with more than just tax dollars? PTA's and other parent groups help. So do civic minded corporations that sponsor school activities. But are there structural supports we can give to education?For example, how about requiring grade eligibility for a young person to drive? Students whose grades slip would have their permits suspended for at least a semester. Drop

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-66225396624795348952009-12-25T09:28:00.000-08:002011-04-08T10:16:19.327-07:00

Others have already remarked on the timeliness of Up in the Air, which meditates upon the efficacy of alienation, in our throw-away society, to help us survive a brutal recession. To its many positive reviews, I only wish to note its seamless interweave of documentary and dramatic filmmaking. I'd assumed the many "terminated employees" in the cast were actors, but later read that Jason Reitman

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8272464485763003717.post-20964634905387102262009-12-19T08:03:00.000-08:002010-07-04T08:00:45.852-07:00

It's not my holiday, but I've always enjoyed it. I actually like the bustle of Christmas shopping, especially when there are Salvation Army Santas ringing their bells. At school in the fifties, carols were part of our curriculum and I remember the words to them all. Once my class went caroling near my house where homes were lavishly adorned with lights, statuettes, and even a creche scene in a

TallTchrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05552334653035259673noreply@blogger.com6