And so, for those of us who are citizens of the United States of America, our national mid-term elections are upon us. It is a time to reflect upon the achievements and mistakes of the past and to suggest the course for the work ahead. I use the word "suggest" because we cannot readily applaud the good work of those few, honest, earnest politicians without also acknowledging the overwhelming, selfish resistance constantly undermining their efforts. Plato's unscrupulous flatterers and Lord… Continue

This morning, we buried a true son of Paskaloochee. His name was (is?) Earnest Hetman, but everyone knew him as Het. Everyone loved him as well, which explains why a particular incident of primary importance to the latter half of his life was curiously unmentioned by his official eulogizers. As expected, each in their turn – Het’s friends, two sons, and sole surviving sister – merely regaled us with the little, endearing moments that supposedly defined him.



There was, I suspect, some… Continue

In the midst of our railing against religion, it can be easy to forget the human heart that lies within its crumbling machinery. I have long been a lover of traditional gospel music, particularly the kind that developed among African-American Protestantism. While I get nothing from the propaganda undercutting it, I am easily swept up in the emotion of the performance and those lyrics which speak of humanity's common longing for solace in this world of woe. Naturally, I am even more drawn to… Continue

And so, October is upon us again. Though the United States is largely divorced from its agricultural origins, for many, this month still marks the heart of harvest season. For the European ancestry that peppers many of our fellow citizens’ lines of descent, this earthly cycle of sowing, flowering, ripening, and reaping brought with it solemn reflection on the cycle of human life. If winter was the season of death, then autumn was the season of dying and Halloween the rough midpoint between them… Continue

Being that it is among the most natural of things to reflect upon the lessons of the past year whenever contemplating the ripe possibilities of the year to come, I offer the following:

Various & Sundry Definitions Acquired While Sitting Quietly & Observantly Amongst Good Company Engaged In Lively Conversation…

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The following is a transcript of a recent telephone conversation between a service representative of the Universal Order’s Department of the Meaning of It All (UODMIA) and the 4,278,930,265th dissatisfied customer of the day:

[3:48am EDT, 9/22/10, Call Origination: Paskaloochee, FN, USA]…

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Of all the days of my 13th summer in Paskaloochee, none stands out so clearly as the day Bent Turner completely lost his mind. He had always been a little off; thus the name, Bent. What his true first name was I never bothered to ask. Bent he was to the town, the nomenclature applied with varying degrees of affection depending upon factors such as age, social status, or denominational affiliation. I say denominational rather than religious, for all in my hometown claimed kinship in the same… Continue