“It’s very difficult, in geography as in morality, to understand the world without leaving your own house.” – Voltaire Sunday Reader – A Think Piece – By Glynn Wilson – KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Do you ever just take some time off to simply think? To dream? Experts in psychology say this is critical not only to…
The Big Picture
Implications Good or Bad at Easter? Church Membership in the U.S. Falls Below a Majority for the First Time
The Big Picture -Â By Glynn Wilson -Â As the capitalist Easter Bunny works overtime to deliver massive amounts of sugary chocolate to stores across America in time for the weekend to celebrate the fertility of spring and the alleged death and resurrection of a prophet named Jesus, pollsters and pundits are wringing their hands…
Don’t Get Mad as Hell: Turn Off the TV and Smell the Flowers
Bending the Arc of the Moral Universe Towards Justice Takes Vigilance
Spring Forward: Sleep Late, Eat, Drink and Be Merry – Then Get Busy Again Saving Democracy From Fascists
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Spring forward and sleep late. I know I did. The iPhone clock said 10:30. The devil who shall not be named is no longer tweet storming an insurrection against American democracy from the White House. A new sheriff is in town. People are already…
Bloody Sunday Anniversary Commemoration Goes Virtual in 2021 Due to COVID
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – It was 56 years ago today (Sunday) that John Lewis led civil rights marchers north across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to face Alabama State Troopers and Dallas County sheriffs deputies on the other side with billy clubs, cattle prods and tear gas. By putting their…
Wake Up: National Public Sleeping Day is No Excuse for Not Reading This
Sunday Reader – By Glynn Wilson – KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The east-facing window in this humble abode was enshrouded in fog the first thing Sunday morning, not the famous smoke you sometimes see in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. Since it’s National Public Sleeping Day and the weather was not conducive to…
Photo Essay – Cades Cove in Winter: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The Return of Prometheus and Frankenstein in Film
Hold Fast Reader Dear How to hold you reader dear: Regale you with comforting stories of barefoot summer mud puddles past? Excite you with salacious tales of sex scandals and conspiracies holding you aghast? Bore you with straight prose and fifth grade level blurbs of fair and balanced contrast? Or write the flame out of…
All the World’s a Stage: Trump’s Impeachment Trial a Bad Show
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining…
The Year of the Rat is Over: Welcome the Year of the Ox
News Coverage of Republican U.S. Senator Richard Shelby’s Announced Retirement is Pathetic
What We’ve Got Here is a Failure to Communicate
The Show Must Go On: But Is it Time to Red-Light Marjorie Taylor Green?
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – You know, there was a time in this country when being openly batshit crazy and totally full of shit was something you at least tried to hide, especially if you harbored ambitions of holding public office. Not anymore. American politics, at least on the Republican side, really…
A Failure to Communicate: Where Do We Go From Here?
“Anything that gets the adrenalin moving like a 440 volt blast in a copper bathtub is good for the reflexes and keeps the veins free of cholesterol… but too many adrenaline rushes in any given time span has the same effect on the nervous system as too many electro-shock treatments are said to have on…
The Frozen Fog of War and the End of the Golden Shower Presidency
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – The news has been churning for a solid a week and a half since 8,000 marauding militiamen and bleary-eyed neo-Nazi thugs marched from the National Mall to the Capitol steps and somehow, with a little help from Republicans and their racist friends in the Capitol Police, actually…
Storming the Capitol Did Not Bring About Freedom – It Destroyed It
Morning Calm in the Sunrise Orange Glow Over the Smoky Mountains
Democrats Projected to Win Both U.S. Senate Campaigns in Georgia – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — My eyes eased open just before sunrise this morning to that pre-sunrise orange glow coming up over the smoky mountains in view from the upstairs window facing east toward the peaks. You know,…