The Olives includes opinions and memoirish entries on my main interests: politics, citizen governance, making things, and pretty much everything else. If you don’t like olives, you probably won’t want to read these.
Over Buying Food Means Wasted Food The latest news, after the war in Ukraine, is the 80 billion pounds of wasted food that Americans produce every year. 22% of the space in our municipal landfills is used to bury wasted food. 37 million cars would be necessary to produce the carbon emissions produced to grow wasted food. 242 pounds of food is wasted by or on behalf of each American […]
Netflix has removed this TV series, Servant of the People, directed by and starring Volodymyr Zelensky — yes, that one. And who was formerly known in English-speaking countries as “Vladimir.” I had seen this TV series before Volodymyr Zelensky became the president of Ukraine. When the election was announced, I noted that it was the same name, a coincidence naturally, probably a common name. Then I saw him sitting in […]
People are the source of all governmental power. —Barbara Jordan. 1976 Barbara Jordan vs Hillary Clinton Clips have been playing for the last few days of Hillary Clinton’s speech at the 2022 National Democratic Convention. Over and over. It’s nice to see her back out there again, but she has to do something with her voice. The harder she tries, the more it sounds witch-like. It’s not pleasant. I wonder where […]
I woke up this morning wondering, “Am I an anarchist?” Of all the things I might have awakened wondering, this would have never made the list. It took a second to remember what an anarchist was, and another to remember why I would be thinking about it. As usual, I had been awake at 3 am reading instead of sleeping. Following the Dawn of Everything, it was David Graeber’s history […]
Ah. Memories of Florida. Building Collapses in Miami on June 24, 2021 After a lifetime of watching movies about the romance of living next to the ocean, I once spent 2 years in Florida. My memories of Florida are somewhat different than those of Johnnie Mathis. It was more like living in a front load washer than a romantic walk alone on a pristine beach silent except for the soft […]
Well, not exactly depressed for no good reason. It’s the fifty-first day of my shelter-in-place sojourn for covid and I finished reading Sarah Kendzior’s Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America this morning. As a specialist, Kendzior explains the development of autocracies and kleptocracies and chronicles all the steps in Donald Trump’s rise to power. Good book but not an upper. Hiding in Plain Sight is […]
Watching the News Coronavirus Counting Game It will make watching the news worth it when there isn’t any. Which journalists have books on their walls? Or paintings? Or photographs? Or certificates? How many books by Stephen King can you count? By Rachel Maddow? About Trump? How many mix fiction and nonfiction? New and old? And do you see any old books? Percentage of unadorned white walls to bookshelves? Are certificates framed, […]
Explaining to a seven-year-old how to tell when 5 hours had passed, I pointed to the clock. No, she said. I know how to tell time, but I don’t comprehend it. How long is it? What can I do in five hours? I was almost 70 then and I couldn’t comprehend time either. Hours, yes. But I was in the decades. How long my life had been—how long anything […]
Roger Ebert ranked this of “Views of Grand Rapids” the best music video ever made. After Newsweek pronounced the city one of the top ten dying the cities in the nation, residents sang and danced back. This world-record setting 9+ minute lip dub features every willing resident of Grand Rapids and they sing, dance, and move in formation to Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie. In the background is Grand Rapids—probably […]
Pattern in Islamic Art is an online archive of over 5,000 beautiful Islamic patterns. Images sortable by museum, monument, region, town, materials used (ceramic tiles, plasterwork, wood, etc.), or by architectural feature (decorative panel, doors & doorways, lattice-work, etc.) Excellent images and documentation. Images are also available in prints. The image above is from Pattern in Islamic Art: Grand Mosquée de Paris This mosque was founded in 1926 and built […]
