The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: United States

  • Environmental Meddling

    Anyone who lives in the Southeastern United States is familiar with kudzu. This amazingly insidious vine was introduced to this country by the Japanese at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, and since then, according to Wikipedia, it’s been spreading at the rate of 150,000 acres annually, which seems really intimidating until you realize that…

  • Our Expanding Family Tree: Cousins Coming out of the Woodwork

    One of the largest and oldest organisms on earth is Pando, a Quaking Aspen clone in Utah that covers over 106 acres. Looking at it, you’d assume that it was just a bunch of individual trees, but it’s actually one organism, and it’s thousands of years old. We didn’t know that until recently. I think…

  • Do Republican Women Hate Themselves?

    When I was in college I was invited to join the youth division of a service organization called the Rotary Club, and I was seriously considering it. I thought it would look great on resumes and applications, and it would be wonderful to have a positive impact on this world. Then I had a conversation…

  • Two Short Steps Away from my Life’s Dream

    Wow! The other day I wrote a blog entry asking for a reader from Greenland, as that was one country I had yet to hear from. And within 14 hours, I got one! That left me marveling at the power of the internet and this blog. I mean, that country doesn’t even have a total…

  • History Repeats Itself

    Here in America most of us think of the Great Depression as being something that impacted our country alone. Not so. The depression did originate in the United States after the stock market crashed in 1929, but it spread throughout the world, causing drops in personal income, tax revenue, and international trade. Unemployment went sky…

  • Mother Teresa Didn’t Have a Blog

    “Words without action are meaningless” he said to me during our ongoing debate about hypocrisy. “Mother Teresa didn’t have a blog.” Ouch. But you know what, I still disagree. Words, when executed properly and offered at the right place, at the right time, about the right topic, can change the world. Here are some words,…

  • “He’s Not MY President!”

    It’s Inauguration Day here in the United States, and even though I worked graveyard shift last night, which means the ceremonies felt like they were being held at the equivalent of my three o’clock in the morning, I watched them. And I got an amazing thrill from the event. Not just because my guy won.…