The November election and its aftermath consumed whole pulpwood forests and many tankers of ink and trillions of electronic pixels, but there's still one thing that needs to be noted.  Wondrously enough, it is good news – and I guess it also is good news that we have the luxury of overlooking our cultural progress.  Read More 

It's over, and I am glad.  Being a historian is comforting:  most historians can predict what most of us will write in the future, and now we can ease up on fretting about the present.  Let me say here and now, though, that I am very confident that Donald Trump -- the only president to have been impeached twice by hundreds of members of the US House -- will rank at the bottom of every list of esteemed presidents.  Read More 

I agonized for days about watching the Super Bowl, feeling ambivalent because of my lost Hubby.  He would have been so excited! When I did decide to watch, it was hard to look at his empty chair.  He lived long enough to know about Tom Brady and greatly admired this ancient athlete.  Beyond that, the game was in Tampa!  And the February weather was exactly what the Chamber of Commerce ordered.  He would have been happy, but it made me sad that he wasn't here to enjoy it. Moreover, it was on Sunday the 7th and wouldn't have interfered with our 55th anniversary on the 8th.  Yes, the Super Bowl began the year we married, 1966. Read More 

To modify William Wordsworth's poem a bit, for just my singular usage.  Almost every day, I feel that the modern world is too much. No, I don't want to go back to the 1950s, when a long-distance call was a big deal – but it seems to me that creation of academic departments of communication in fact has lessened communication.  Or something.  Most of the young people I encounter on the phone are polite and sound sincere, but they seem to be largely incompetent.  That is if you can get a human, after passing through countless menus, messages about COVID, privacy, and a bunch other things that are not the reason for your call. Read More