This post is actually taken from my company’s FB page, where a paid boost was denied. I read it again and again and couldn’t really find what the “infraction” was, so I let it go without changes, or boost. When editing becomes blatant censorship based on one individual’s interpretation of understandings, freedom of speech goes out the door. These are the rules supposedly broken by the piece, which is really a year end note and a wish for a better new year… “ Policy Ads must not contain content that asserts or implies personal attributes. This includes direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s race, ethnic origin, religion, beliefs, age, sexual orientation or practices, gender identity, disability, medical condition (including physical or mental health), financial status, voting status, membership in a trade union, criminal record, or name.” And here is the post. THE END OF A SINGULAR YEAR. We are but two days away from turning the page on the year...

One of the great advantages of having survived the diagnosis and subsequent treatment ( with all the short term/long term ramifications involved ) of a cancer, along with a couple or three major surgeries to replace bone parts which had been worn out from use and abuse over the years, is that I have learned to look at the world around me with a somewhat more encompassing, yet skeptical eye. Sometimes approving, sometimes unbelieving, sometimes from a comical relief viewpoint. But always taking all details in, even when it doesn’t seem to be so.   I find it fascinating that today, those objects that were “Oh-so-important” some years ago, are now just things to be appreciated; enjoyed if available and -if not- enjoyed from afar. Without jealousy, regrets or envy. I don’t know if this is a sign of maturity or conformity. Some folks do use this last term in the form of an attack, as in: “you are a CONFORMIST!!” whenever a person is willing to enjoy what he or she has at any particula...

The original idea was to just splash a cute, non-descript title on top and then go ahead and start filling paper with a number of ingenious ideas and witty repartee… Although genuinely nice and creative, that went awry very quickly. As you can see, there is no title yet and as for ingenious ideas and witty repartee… not much of that either. Writing is much like any other exercise. When you do it regularly, it becomes “easy”. When the wheels of creativity ( mine seem to be thumping square wheels at the moment ) stop rolling … it is hell to pay just to get then going again. But I try. Because it is something that allows me to think beyond my current status, place or even hiding hole, if you prefer. It is letting the imagination take over and run crazy with whatever it begins to create. Sometimes that vision is a little frightening; sometimes it just hovers just above reality with some basic changes. Sometimes it just is … well … a waste of time. Most of the entries on this long-ign...

  This is purely an exercise in thinking ( a concept which, apparently, has fallen into hard times lately ) and trying to project those thoughts into a future world before they disappear back into the mists from which they originally rose. I will state, unequivocally, that I am not a scientist nor a student of the human mind. Just an old guy who has seen a lot of fools come and go, before -or while- becoming one myself.   Someday in the future, when history finally redeems itself as history and not as the currently favored overworked patch of repaired and restructured quasi-facts, our grand/great grandchildren will look at this stretch as a most revealing time for our country. - “Welcome to the first session of 2040 class … we are going to review the impact te press had in their handling of information during the infamous 2020 pandemic, as it related to an election year” says Ms. Hightone, the US history teacher. - “Mr. Bleak” continues the class leader … “Please give us...

Almost every other corner in my ho metown -at least the older part of town where I lived- had a bodega. This is our term for the old-time neighborhood corner store. Where you went to buy the stuff you needed to create lunch or dinner, buy a quick Coca-Cola in the middle of a hot summer day, or where the guys went to have a beer and shoot the breeze at the end of a workday. Just prior to getting home, which was just a few short steps away. After all, it was the “bodega de la esquina” (the corner store). These weren’t fancy places. Imagine a wide-open front main entrance … and around the very corner, another wide entrance. After all, there had to be access from both sides of the corner, not just one. Basic marketing in motion. It also helped with the breeze on a hot afternoon. No air conditioning here… As you entered, there were barrels of the dry stuff along a very long, wooden counter, sitting on a very old cement floor. What was the dry stuff? Well, since you asked … rice,...

This concept, for a very particular reason, has been in my mind for a while now. How do you emotionally say goodbye to someone whom you have not seen but once in 56 years? We human beings, suffer from a distancing malady ( no, not the famous virus induced “social distancing” so in vogue now ) which will --probably as an exercise in self-defense and survival— slowly erode some of the emotional ties and memories which we formed over the early years of our life, after we are suddenly and totally distanced from these. This erosion of older memories opens the way for us to manage and do our best to live through the encroaching threats of daily life and helps handle moments of potential trauma. Yes, we are human. Trite excuse but true, nonetheless. With all the failures, successes, foibles and -why not say it?-   the downright stupid behavior at which we excel more often than we’d like to acknowledge. And this last inherent malady takes several forms, none very flattering when ...

I am now, like most people around me, going into a forced second week of quarantine. And, like them, this gives me ample time to sit, think, project into the future, create a new life experience … or not. We have already painted a few walls ( not too well, I’m afraid …), done the grass a couple of times, tended the garden, downloaded half of the universe’s music, re-arranged a lot of files in the computer, changed some paintings around, “discovered” several shows on Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, read some books for the second or third time, managed not to argue (too much) with my other half,   and are close to running out of things to do… and there are still one or two weeks to go. On a more serious thinking process, what is totally a human issue has quickly been converted into a political game of “my junk is bigger than yours”. With total disregard, by some parts, as to the damage this will do to those who are directly affected by this situation. Which is practically 80% o...

·        family, ethnic, or cultural origins, especially as the reasons for one's long-standing emotional attachment to a place or community.  "it's always nice to return to my roots" The last entry in this once well-fed but now too lean blog, was November of last year. I can tell you that several times since then my eyes have stared, in vain, at the blank screen of the computer. And, at times, there usually is not much that can be done except to get back to work. In all fairness, my time has been quite taken up by ESL classes and a FB page which demands time and effort. But now, time that has appeared thanks to that unwelcome visitor which, hiding behind a corona, ( Sp. for crown ) is apparently unleashing an unrelenting attack on the human race. This is forcing me to become better acquainted with my immediate neighborhood and neighbors, albeit from a deemed safe distance of 2 meters and at least for the next 15 days. Because of this, th...