Opinion

Saturday night I did a DJ gig for a couple’s 50th wedding anniversary. My music, and that crowd, rocked the house so much we had a black out. Yeah, we lost power for several long minutes. That loss of power meant darkness and no A/C. That was no problem though. The youngsters used the battery powered candles from the tables to light up the dance floor. (Power was off so I could not play music, but the dance floor was looking good). The flashlights on the phones made me feel like we were at a rock concert. The strange and good thing about this was there was no panic or sense of emergency.

We’ve all heard of the futility of trying to take “country” from rural lads after they’ve moved to town, and the same likely applies to attempts to take “clown” from rodeo entertainers, even when they climb the educational ladder to school superintendencies.

Many of us recently celebrated the July 4, 1776 signing of The Declaration of Independence. However, another large segment of our society protested the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) could not locate any right to an abortion within the US Constitution, and they determined that the previous ruling on the matter had amounted to rule by men.

This is the final and most difficult portion of a four-part essay which was prompted by the May 24, 2022 shooting spree in Uvalde, TX. There is a widespread recognition that mental illness plays a direct role in some mass shootings in addition to creating many of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) which shooters have suffered.

My phone pulsated with excitement that could be attributed to my Uncle Mort’s recent spate of news, both good and bad. I asked for the good news first.

I have had some extra time on my hands and have watched some things that have caused me to pause and question if they cause one to have the same emotion I experience when they occur. When you watch three people try to open a jar of pickles and you get your chance and you twist the jar and turn the cap and hear that soft ‘pop’ indicating the cap had released, does that make you feel good? Yeah, me too.

This is the third installment in what has become a series of essays which began with the question, “What in the world is going on?” In these we have tried to come to grips with the root of problems that seem now to typify modern America, and have especially focused on school shootings and other events in which the intent is mass murder followed by suicide.

If you take financial advice from this column, in the future, you may not be able to afford to read this column. That said… let’s talk digital currencies. There are more than 18,000 cryptocurrencies on the market but what is it? Most agree it’s a digital currency that operates outside the traditional government/ banking control, instead using public ledgers known as blockchains. But did you know that anyone can make a digital currency with a little coding? Yes, you and I can make our own digital currency. Late Show host Stephen Colbert’s crypto is called Ijustmadethatupeum. But is it a currency?

Last week more than one person referred to my article about the Uvalde school tragedy. Most everyone agreed with my comments, but still we are now no closer to offering a solution to the problem than we were when it happened.

This past week has been a rough one. On a personal level I traveled out-of-town to preside over a "celebration of life" in Houston. Every one of my four flights was delayed, not to mention the airlines could not have put the connecting gates any further apart than they were in the DFW airport.