Coffee Muse I like coffee so much that I have tea for breakfast: The first cup of the day in particular is so good that I’m afraid I won’t be able to properly appreciate it when I am half-asleep. Therefore, I celebrate it two hours later when I am fully…
Already in free fall, the price of oil could soon push much lower as the effects of a global recession take hold. Crude fell $3.12, or 6.7%, to settle at $43.67 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. Many oil-industry insiders and traders now say prices could…
It looks like just about everyone in the house now has the flu...except me (knock on wood). What a great lead-in to the Thanksgiving Feasting. Tomorrow we head to my mom's where my clan and Sherry's will gather around a number of tables to see if we can get through…
Day 22 Post Freeman Three weeks and a day, the vacation is over...What now? I am still a long way from figuring out what the rest of my life will be...I guess the symbolical nature of the season and the state of my life are in sync. It's the little…
Reading my morning emails brought me this... 5 Myths About Our Ailing Health-Care System America has the best health care in the world. Somebody else is paying for your health insurance. We would save a lot if we could cut the administrative waste of private insurance. Health-care reform is going…
It's a heck of a note when the week before Thanksgiving the weather is perfect for Bar-b-Que...Only in Texas.
At about 4pm on Monday afternoon this was what the Weather Underground had to say about the conditions here... Current Conditions Alvin, Texas (PWS) 68.9 °F / 20.5 °C Clear Humidity: 17% Dew Point: 22 °F / -5 °C Wind: 0.0 mph / 0 km/h Wind Gust: 0.0 mph /…
Currently (on Sun 5:53AM CST from Pearland Regional Airport) Clear Temp: 36° Dewpoint: 34° Wind: Calm MPH After a gorgeous day yesterday, the sun is rising over the start of what looks to be another...Just cooler. This day looks and feels a lot like Saturday morning last week in…
The Guardian has this to say about yesterday... They did it. They really did it. So often crudely caricatured by others, the American people yesterday stood in the eye of history and made an emphatic choice for change for themselves and the world. Though bombarded by a blizzard of last-minute…
While my friends on the Blue Ridge are climbing out of bed this morning and firing up their stoves to beat back the cold we finaly greeted some nice fall weather. The temperature this morning as I sit and write this is 46°. The sky is clear and we should…
Only in Houston could you hear a 66° temperature referred to as a "chilly autumn morning". All summer I've been amazed by the weather prognosticators descriptive adjectives. The mid-nineties and ozone warnings does not a beautiful fall day make...At least not in my book. I will admit a couple of…
Up on the mountain behind my house, the wild blueberries are ripe and prolific. It’s public land, part of the Maine state-park system, so the berries are free for the picking. In a half-hour or so, if I’m lucky, I can fill a tin cup with enough berries for breakfast,…
This has to be one of the strangest things about Texas Republicans... When health care in Texas makes headlines, the issues raised by administrators and physicians are hardly rosy. They include overcrowded emergency rooms, mounting hospital budget deficits created by unfunded indigent care, and uninsured rates for adults and children…
Could McCain possibly have received a better response to his "Celebrity" ad than this? See Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad and more funny videos on FunnyOrDie.comSee more funny videos at Funny or Die For the first time in my life I have to say...You go girl...
The Pleasurable Choice Is the Ethical Choice I like to say that I'm not an an optimist, but I am a person of hope. That is to say, I cultivate the virtue of hope in myself. Hope takes account of the enormity and darkness of challenges and problems, and yet…
First things first --- Happy Birthday Sherry. I know you never read these muses...but hell, I'll still say it here. The best present I ever got... Now to the subject of this muse...Heat. It's hot here, it's hot across the south, it's hot on the Blue Ridges of North Carolina…
The "Party" on Saturday had all of the appearances of being a success. By the time the house was empty and the ticky-tacky leftovers were put away I could once again hit the lazy-boy and reflect on the past couple of weeks of labor and feel good that it was…
Around these parts most of our ripened fruit happened a month or better ago. The only thing still to come are the pecans in the fall. Even so the following resonates... The Suburban Life - Thinking Ahead - Editorial - NYTimes.com It’s a good year for blueberries. Decades ago, a…
I finally bit the bullet and upgraded this site to the new WordPress 2.6...I thought I was locked out of my own site...It took two days to figure out why I could not log in...user name and password were right...log in again was the prompt...over and over again...then on a…
Pardon the parsity of the recent posts. I find myself in that strange world of being in between. After thirty-five years at the same company (yes, most of my co-workers weren't even born when I started), I find my skills and knowledge not as welcome as they were. Management changes…
Overnight Thompson's price per kilowatt-hour went from 11.8 cents with the now-defunct retailer National Power to 31.7 cents with CPL Retail Energy. During the 19 days last month he had to wait before he was switched to a lower priced plan, he ran up a $385 bill. Top wholesale power…
Ever since Sept. 11, I have been of a contrarian. I never felt that the date had changed anything other than our own misguided perception of our own safety. A perception I did not share then. Now I read that my views are shared by, at least some of, those…
The Rural Life - Editorial - Summer’s Night - Editorial - NYTimes.com The last couple of nights I’ve stood at the edge of the pasture watching the fireflies. They rise from the grass, flickering higher and higher until one of them turns into the blinking lights of a jet flying…
Looking out the french doors in the kitchen this morning as I read my email and check the news I am amazed at the difference a couple of weeks of hit and miss rain can make. Everything in view is green again. The grass is growing like it should have…
I saw the notice in my email first thing and as I worked my way down the list I was trying to formulate a post. Then I read John Scalzi's...If you are or were a Carlin fan go read John's short tribute. Whatever » RIP, George Carlin He was my…
State GOP targets Obama at Houston convention (w/video) | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle Cornyn was among several speakers who called the party home to its philosophical foundation and urged voters to view Obama as a near-socialist who doesn't share Texas values. The state's other senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said Obama…
As I slide down toward another weekend, my feedreader brings me this from Mark Peacock at Appalachian Treks... Appalachian Treks: Serene Majesty There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations. --Washington Irving…
Clinton's Count Doesn't Add Up - washingtonpost.com You have to admire Hillary Clinton for her ability to reshape reality to her preferred outcome. She seems to assume that if she says something loudly enough, and repeats it often enough, it will become true. Her victory speech in Puerto Rico was…
Way back when, in the final season of the West Wing there was an episode with the title "The Presidential Voice". The premise was that Congressman Santos didn't have the "Presidential Voice" and they were trying to teach it to him. Long story short...You don't teach the "Presidential Voice", it…
Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS
May 2, 2008
BILL MOYERS:Welcome to the Journal.
I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, "Who's telling the truth over there?" Everyone he said. Everyone sees what's happening through the lens of their own experience." That's how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: "Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical," one viewer wrote. A "nut case," said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.
