The Hurrier I Go, The Behinder I Get!
…And I thought that these days, my pace would be a bit more leisurely…Ha! Fat Chance! This edition of Random Thoughts will be all over the place, hopefully with a nugget or two unearthed herein. I also am going to try to ‘Morse Code’ it; that is, spray whatever is on my mind in quick hit, bull …spay it out there in quick hit, bullet point style.
I have resisted doing this but it is now so apparent, I have to take ownership. I have many job descriptions; I do a lot of things. Please add formally to the list: One of my jobs is that I am a Reader. Voracious. Always have been. Was talking with a friend a few days ago who has always suggested that I watch this movie or that show on the various streaming services and then later asks me if I have watched. Rarely is my response in the affirmative. Aside from the local news, which I find so richly entertaining and a banal amateur hour of local reporters stumbling inarticulate indeed along (the national news has turned into a very mediocre combo platter of The Weather Channel, People Magazine and a Political Hand Wringing Pity Party-just watch the first three minutes of lead in and that’s all I need) and true, I do watch lots of sports, that’s it. I don’t have a favorite show. I detest award shows which now proliferate like rabbits and hamsters.
As an aside, everything on the national news is perpetually bannered in big caps-BREAKING NEWS-which of course, it’s not.
I read.
Watching is basically passive unless Heels or Braves or some other honest to God favorite are shown on the blinking tube.
Reading is active; you have to dig in, find the flow and think. I don’t need the snake oil of Prevagen. I need a good book and lots of good conversation.
Good news. I know baseball season is almost here. I know pitchers and catchers have reported. And now it’s official. Why? I go to Causey’s Barbershop almost every week to get my beard trimmed and my head shaved down. Last Monday I got, in addition to cleaned up, the Braves 2024 Schedule Calendar. Can always count on Causey’s. Opening Day is March 28thwhen the tough out Phillies come to the Chop House.
Spring is thus here.
Was reading in Barron’s last week why the big drug store chains are having lots of problems with lack of personnel, mis-filling of prescriptions, lots of employee discontent, bottom line over being careful.
There was a chart that really caught my eye. In 2013, CVS filled about 800 million prescriptions. In 2023, CVS filled more than 1,600 million prescriptions. A double! The article did not address the reasons for this enormous increase-only noted that it was one of the many factors in the above-noted difficulties. What’s going on?
As the Brits often say, ‘Too cute by half’…overly superior, so clever.
There was a letter to the editor in the Post & Courier the other day and this sort of inane, overblown stuff unfortunately makes regular appearance.
By the way the now oh-so-Woke New York Times is barely better. The Wall Street Journal is always very substantive; because it is the more serious of the two.
Here’s the local letter in its entirety.
“With the global population at more than 8 billion, it’s no wonder there are more places-whether it’s globally (the Middle East), nationally (the southern border)or locally (the Low Country)-suffering from too many folks, beliefs and divisions fitting into too little geography.”
How pitifully pithy. I guess first we need to start culling the herds (Hmmm…how to do? Spaceships to the moon…?) everywhere, bring in the Thought Police to restore intellectual unanimity and restrict independent thinking and give whoever is left a Barney doll and a recording of Rodney King’s ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’
Stupid and Boring and Pedantic. And by the way, who is the Editorial Page editor over at the P&C who gave this treacle a pass? Bad.
I loved practicing law and trying cases-forty-plus years of rewarding, entertaining work and now I wouldn’t go back if you held a gun on me. Here’s one of the prominent reasons. Now, the state courts are all moving to (makes my hair hurt)-a transition from paper files to -Enterprise Justice (Odyssey) (Whatever the Hell that is…), a cloud-hosted digital case management system. I don’t care who the host is; I would regret the party no matter what. Too much enslavement to technology.
My Mother turns 99 in a few days. A remarkable lady and a remarkable life. She’s slowing down a bit but her opening and closing mantra for all her family has always been “Watch your money and Watch your drinking.”
I’m going up to Winston-Salem this Friday for some muted festivities and look forward to being so admonished. The day those words of instruction are no longer uttered-well, an unwelcome corner will have been turned.
If you’ve a little extra, please give a charitable gift to our local Center for Heirs Property (www.Heirsproperty.org). They do a wonderful job in providing effective education, legal services and sustainable land use options to help low wealth landowners move out of poverty. A most worthy outfit.
Fun fact report: Neuropsychology has shown that short term memory lasts 15 to 30 seconds, after which it either has to be encoded as a long term memory or it decays.
(I’m sorry. What did you say your name was…”)
Ah, the Sky Is Falling hysteria of the Old Gray Lady a/k/a The New York Times. A front page, top right headline from January 17th of this year:
‘In Iowa, Trump Tightens Grip On National Psyche’
You know, I just not am not feeling any ‘grip’. I don’t like Trump. I won’t vote for him and I won’t vote for Biden/Harris either. But this amateur psychology mumbo-jumbo from one of our allegedly preeminent national newspapers is just oh-so over the top. The endgame is just something that I have figured out. Think I can do it without counseling or medication.
Now, a few, quick book reviews for a few I have recently enjoyed. I’ll not bother with a couple that I thought were ‘stinkers’ and gave up about halfway.
MAGIC ,THE LIFE OF EARVIN “Magic” Johnson by Roland Lazenby.
Almost 800 fascinating pages. This is not just a ‘sports’ biography though it is a biography. It is also an encompassing survey of the history of the socio-cultural shift and shake that happened in America when Magic and Bird and Jordan came to town.
TWENTY YEARS LATER by Charlie Donlea
Good, entertaining murder mystery…will not be on the national book award list but a good read nonetheless.
NOBODY’S FOOL by Richard Russo
It’s the little things that count in real life. Regular people doing regular things in a little town in upstate New York with all the attendant joys and problems that always come along. This is the first in a trilogy.
Can’t wait to get to the second and third books. Engaging.
THE MOONSHINER’S DAUGHTER by Donna Everhart
Jessie Sasser must overcome doubts and grudges and more than a little danger and the mystery of her mother’s horrific death in the Moonshine Hills in the Piedmont of North Carolina. (My country , just by the way.) Nicely done.
JUDGMENT AT TOKYO by Gary J. Bass
This is a brilliant, thick and thorough recitation of the War Crimes Trials at the end of World War Two in the Pacific. Encompasses how the making of modern Asia came to pass. Great and necessary history.
CRIME NOVELS, FIVE CLASSIC THRILLERS 1961-1964 as compiled by the Library of America
850 pages of great crime writing. First of two volumes in a LOA Box Set. Ate it all up.
Lastly, I’ll leave you with this head scratcher of a note. I recently mailed a check up to a fellow up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina-which is about a 4 ½ hour drive from here in Charleston. It got there 27 days later.
Anybody else noticed that the U.S. Postal Service just ain't what it used to be…?
OK, that’s a wrap. Keep reading and thinking and stay safe. My best to you all.
Vernon