Author Archives: Pat Greene

Penwiper doing her best Bast impersonation

I have been trying to postpone posts on hot-button topics until I can form coherent sentences about them.  Occasionally, this means waiting until I calm down enough that I am not frothing at the mouth. Antonin Scalia gave an interview … Continue reading →

Dear Jonathan Larson, wherever you may be, I love your work, man. Rent should have been the opening act of a career that would have staggered the world. That it was a swan song is heartbreaking. But, and I realize … Continue reading →

I think this says everything I would want to say about the shooting in Arizona:

The Not-So-Little-Drummer Boy went back to school earlier this week. After several days of concentrated effort, I have mostly exorcised the inappropriate use of the word “like” from my vocabulary. At one point while he was here, I challenged him … Continue reading →

This is a retraction, sort of. I have removed my post about the Gifford shooting as being premature: we do not as yet know motivations. That said, I stand by my statements about the invidious nature of the far-right rhetoric. … Continue reading →

One of the recurring themes of fundamentalist American Christianity is how “persecuted” they are. They seem to have a personal investment in finding themselves persecuted, to the point where they define “not being able to establish a theocracy, and not … Continue reading →

He looks around, around ….. He sees angels in the architecture, Spinning in infinity, He says, Amen! and Hallelujah! Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al” Yesterday, my “planned pleasant activity” was a trip into the City to walk the … Continue reading →

Definitely take the time to read the parking garage signs more carefully.  The garage at Grace Cathedral is not $2.50/hour, as you misunderstood it to be, but $2.50/every twenty minutes. That ended up being a more expensive church service than … Continue reading →

This above all: to thine own self be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, act I, scene iii   Last night, The Red-Headed Menace (RHM) was talking to … Continue reading →

EchidnaBoy has requested that his nom de blog be changed.  Normally I would have laughed at him and said, “Not a chance, Bub,”  but he does in fact valid reasons for asking.  So, in the future, my youngest son shall … Continue reading →

Asking a judge who has ruled against you and in support of same-sex marriage to recuse himself on the basis of his wife’s activities is not going to fly.  I could have told you that.  As could have a lot … Continue reading →

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?  T.S. Eliot, “The Rock” Tonight, the Rocket Scientist, our friend the Resident Shrink, and I went to a pub in San Jose and played … Continue reading →

The first decade of the millennium is well and truly gone.  Thank God. The past ten years saw the worst attack on American soil not inflicted by ourselves.  A date so horrible that it is not necessary to delineate the … Continue reading →

My resolutions, in no particular order: 1. Pay attention to what other people tell you about yourself. They are bound to be more truthful and accurate than the voices in your head. 2.  Corollary to the above: take care of … Continue reading →