A TURNING POINT?

    A watershed?

    I am a new subscriber to the magazine, the Atlantic. I was informed, more than once, that subscribers will receive only ten magazines during the year. My first two issues have hardly arrived in my mailbox, both on the same day, when the editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, announced that because of an increase to over a million subscribers, and a substantial increase in advertising revenue, Atlantic will return to 12 issues per year.

“The greatness of print and especially a print magazine is that it sits still for you,” Goldberg said. “It doesn’t beep and flash and demand that you do things. It’s there to be read and enjoyed. People still derive intellectual and aesthetic pleasure from print.”

    Is this a foretelling that the seekers of news may be running away from the ephemeral internet or television and returning to something that stays put? Words in print cannot be altered -- what you read is there to stay.

    Does this signify a rebound of newspapers and news magazines? The Kansas City Star/Times still throws the morning newspaper in my driveway.

FALLING, FALLING

     Why do I keep falling for clickbait?

    The first screen will show a guy in a white coat, so you assume he is a prominent doctor (when in truth he has no patients and is eager to earn a few $$$, maybe he isn't a doctor anyway, we don't see his credentials hanging on a nearby wall). The words on the screen read that you should never eat avocados again. READ MORE. Click. And here is an advertisement for cruise trips. (You did do a little search on cruise lines yesterday.)

    A slight scroll and there appears a description of an avocado (as if you have never seen an avocado before). Another scroll to reveal an advertisement for the best in vacuum tools. If you want to learn more about avocados, stay on course, don't get detoured into exploring vacuum tools.

    More scrolls, more advertisements and occasionally another sparse paragraph warning you about eating avocados, but not yet the reason. Advertisements to the right and the left, sometimes covering portions of the text about avocados. You should be able to remove the advertisements by clicking on an X, which is sometimes hard to find, if it exists at all.

    Why do I keep falling for clickbait? 

ARMISTICE

Armistice. Latin. armistitution, a short truce.

This Kansas plain has been blessed

by the blood of those who left.

Some brought home in boxes. Others never.

Island Mound, San Juan Hill, Chateau Thierry,

Normandy, Coral Sea, Heartbreak Ridge,

Saigon, Baghdad , , , Kabul , , , Kandahar . . .

So many places. So many heroes.

We honor their memory with our lives.

We see their faces in the stars.

(First published in To The Stars Through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices.)

SUMMER BLOOMS

    My Aunt Genevieve never had much time for gardening, but every where she lived, every spring, she managed to plant a couple of rows of colorful zinnias in an area where they would be visible to a passerby. Throughout the summer the abundant blooms provided welcome color.

    A bonus would be their availability for bouquets or flower arrangements to adorn the fireplace mantel or the center of the dining room table. Sometimes a bloom or two, along with a bit of greenery -- matured asparagus stalks if any growing nearby -- went with her to pay someone a visit. Like my Aunt Genevieve, zinnias were tough and hardy.

WHAT NOW?

     We have an antiquated telephone. No, it's not as antique as a rotary dial, but it's one of those that when you hold it to your ear, you can't see the buttons. Well, including mobile phones, I guess all modern phones are like that nowadays.

    The recorded voice gives you an option . . . press one . . . so you hold the phone away from your ear so you can see the buttons. You press one and by the time you get the phone back to your ear you have missed the first few words of the next bit of recorded voice.

    Last Friday my doctor (well, not an M.D. , but a P.A.) changed one of my prescriptions. A recorded Walgreens voice called me this afternoon. The voice said the prescription was ready to be picked up, but it needed to ask me a few questions. Would I please enter my birthdate?

    What? Take the phone away from my ear and painstakingly enter my birthdate? In what exact format did the voice want my birthdate? I remember the pleasure of slamming a rotary phone down on a boyfriend who jilted me. Can you derive any satisfaction out of slamming the phone down on a recorded voice?

I LIKE WHAT CARVILLLE SAID

     James Carville has just risen mightily in my opinion.

    Said Carville, "They came after women," made insulting remarks about women, "but I said nothing because I'm not a woman".

    They came after Puerto Ricans, "but I said nothing because I'm not a Puerto Rican".

    They targeted Black people, "but I said nothing because I'm not Black".

    "But they came after watermelon", and they got Carville's attention.

    Carville was also defensive about gumbo.

    I would join Carville in defending watermelon, but he can have his gumbo. Just let me know when they come after runzas.

I VOTED FOR THE NUTCASE

     Yes, I did.

    It was a vote AGAINST the incumbent. I was so angry with the incumbent because of his lack of communication. He never responded to letters (this was before email). To really clinch my feelings I had recently attended a Republican event. We were all seated at tables for eight. He was seated at the next table, and as we swung ourselves on our swivel chairs away from the table he and I were elbow-to-elbow. Never once during the evening did he say anything to me or acknowledge my presence in any way.

    So without taking time to research I voted for his opponent. Fortunately, the incumbent was re-elected.

    I say fortunately because a few weeks later I actually met the opponent when he attended a meeting of District Two of the Kansas Authors Club. He carried a briefcase on which was stated the office he had sought. He seemed to think that he had won and was waiting to be summoned to Washington DC.

    He also seemed to think he could be a best-selling writer. (Well, a lot of us suffer from that delusion, so I guess a lot of us are nutcases.)