“Before you leave your house, check yourself. Wallet, keys, mask, gloves, and energy. What is your current physical or mental state? Are you sick? Yes? Turnaround, go back into the house. Send the next available healthy family member or call for assistance with a delivery. Ahhh, conflict averted. Seriously, I have seen recent headlines of fights that started with a cough.”
Category Archive: Opinion
“My compost pile isn’t huge or fancy; I constructed its three sides from some reclaimed concrete blocks and an old pallet, lashed together with twine. It’s not perfect, but it’s doing the job, which is to break down kitchen scraps and yard clippings into rich material that returns nutrients to the soil.”
“Cadence is my best friend. Cadence is a carbon copy of me. She is one of my favorite people and the one that can frustrate me the most because we are the same person. Cadence is my ‘typical’ child who has an autistic brother.
“And sometimes I feel like I have failed her.”
“Are we capable of the self-sacrifice that generations of Americans before us have made? Are we going to do our part? Can we still join together to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for our fellow Americans now and for generations to come?”
“‘Murder Most Foul’ seems to suggest Bob Dylan turned to music to help him cope with the terrible events of November 1963. Could he be suggesting that in our current COVID-19 crisis, we too should turn to music to help us? By releasing this song in the middle of the pandemic, is Dylan adding one more musical resource?”
“Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been trying to stay in front of this pandemic and is making decisions based on our safety, the constituents of her state. Requesting supplies from the federal government, closing schools, and issuing stay-at-home orders are all part of an attempt to flatten the curve on this deadly virus, and will save lives if done correctly. Her decision to extend the stay-at-home orders and to create more stringent rules are not because she has decided to be a dictator, nor are they because she is trying to become Joe Biden’s running mate.
“It’s because we as residents of this state were not making intelligent decisions.”
Normal has gone and won’t be back any time soon due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here lies an unusual fork in the road, but a crossroad just the same. A question. Who in this moment will you be? Some of you, like myself, have stood at this familiar intersection before. Maybe after the loss of a job or relationship or sudden crisis. It was glaringly obvious you had reached a point and had to decide who you were going to be in that defining moment and beyond. This is just like that.
But the question lingers. Is the Corona Champion legitimate? Will the Tampa Bay Lightning still be a Stanley Cup Champion if they hoist the Cup in a 5,000-seat college arena, skating past empty seats while the Red Hot Chili Peppers are played extra loud to drown out the crickets? Would Kevin Garnett’s legendary declaration of “Anything is possible!” rung out to the heavens the same way without a cheering crowd behind him? If Bill Russell was at home for his own safety instead of standing in the confetti shower with Garnett?
Maybe not. But the soul of the game is the playing of the game.
James Smith reviews Disney-Pixar’s Onward, quotes J.R.R. Tolkien, and references Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jesus in the same sentence in this week’s edition of Gutenberg.
Those who follow us, who did not live through these unprecedented times, will ask us what we did and how we acted. They’ll be feeling the ripple effects, seen and unseen, and they’ll want to know how we responded to this serious threat. How did we help? Who did we help?
It’s OK to ride the struggle bus at times. But maybe it’s time I jump off that bus, pull up my PJ pants, because let’s be real, that’s all I’ve worn in the last month, and start walking down a new path of motherhood. The path that leads me to being the best mom I can be today instead of the perfect mom.
“In the time of coronavirus, there’s something refreshing about seeing people live their lives so shamelessly, even if it’s just on a television screen. Unlike in real life, no one in the Tiger King universe washes their hands each time they touch something. Heck, no one in the Tiger King universe bothers to wash their hands even after being attacked by a lion. I watched all seven episodes of the series, and I don’t think there was even a single reference to hand sanitizer.”
Even for the greats it all comes to an end at some point. To be a college or high school athlete, you have to deal with this realization a lot sooner than you would like. Hanging up the cleats for the last time is a feeling that will last with you forever.
Around the world there was little time to brace for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has rocked so much to the core, including me. As a daughter, friend, wife, mother… human, I am concerned about not only those that I love, but also those that I don’t know all over the world.
In the midst of planning, cleaning and assisting, one unexpected emotion that kept circling back was grief. It took me by surprise, but its presence was undeniable. Grief.
“What I am seeing when I look around the church and society is Easter in the truest form it’s been practiced in a long time.”
Do you ever wonder where later has gone? I often think it goes to the back of the closet and gets lost with those Christmas gifts you forgot you bought. As an adult, later seems like something small and trivial. As a child, later seems like something you’ve wished for but it never happens. And that makes me mad.
Why is it so hard for organizations such as the Black student union or the Latino student union to collaborate with the Western Democrats or the Western Republicans? Why is it so hard to have that color representation in something as big as politics, especially in college?
I like to look out the window — I think I get that from my dad. While I was growing up, my parents had an agreement that my mother would drive the car anywhere we went as a family; I’m told it was so that my father could look out the window without imperiling the rest of us.