The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was obvious, wanted to be as far away from this stinker as he could get. He didn’t, it seemed, want to be soiled with whatever the Secretary of Defense (“secretary of war” in his own delusions of grandeur) had been rolling in.
A Farewell To Arms is about as positive as Hemingway is going to get. Frederic Henry is the American protagonist wounded while serving as an ambulance driver. A lieutenant in the Italian army, he lets us see World War I through his eyes.
It’s doubly tragic that just days before Easter there’s need to address the appalling fact that more and more countries in the world, and a dozen states, now have laws that allow the killing of their citizens and residents.
Don’t you just love spring flowers? Here we are, coming up to Easter and spring flowers are blooming outside. But the process of planting spring bulbs is really kind of strange if you think about it.
The mood in the CBS Radio Networks newsroom was grim, depressing, and tense.
There had recently been buyouts, with longtime employees being offered cash and benefits to . . . leave. Many, including longtime employees who didn’t accept the buyouts (or ones who for some reason weren’t offered them), were laid off, never to return.
I actually read this novella a few years back, in preparation for teaching it to my ninth grade students. I have an Audible version, narrated by the great Donald Sutherland, may he rest in peace.
You might have heard of an article published by Reuters late last week in which after extensive research and what I guess they’d call shoe-leather detective work they identified the famous British stencil-graffiti artist known as “Banksy.”
If you’ve been conscious at all the last 10 years or so, it’s been pretty tough in American politics. Outright assassinations, attempted assassinations, and the type of conflict that could turn violent at any time. Many people think they cannot have a conversation across the political aisle, so to speak, without harming or ending friendships, and even family relationships. We’ve all experienced the tension here; no one we know has been free of its effects.
It was among the most welcome phone calls I’ve ever made. The call was to Frontier or Verizon or whatever it is they currently call themselves. I was calling to tell them that after 21 years, one month, and five days I was done with what in my estimation is the worst phone company ever.
Two esoteric programming events bubbled up this past week. If you’re not into computer science, they may appear irrelevant to you. They’re not. The arcane managed to bring to life our pressing questions about whether AI can create or is a regurgitation machine.