\u2022\u00a0 Most would agree that the beauty of a butterfly’s wings more than compensates for the defoliation caused by its offspring.\u00a0 Donald Trump would have us think this works in the opposite direction as well — that having beautiful offspring somehow makes up for his own destructive behavior.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 The spring flowerlets of scotch broom smell wonderful — our bumblebees love them.\u00a0 The branches laden with their tiny cup-like flowers fall gracefully over our boulder wall.\u00a0 And like most things special, their display lasts only a week or two.\u00a0 Then, poof.\u00a0 And our fickle bumblebees fly off to the next enticing fragrance.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 I would like to see just one New York\/Hollywood\/Nashville female celebrity show up at an awards show or other similar gala wearing a burka.\u00a0 What famous American woman would dare make such a bold non-fashion statement?<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 Not that I think burkas are a feminist statement — just the opposite.\u00a0 But neither is designer celebrity-wear a feminist statement, but a beauty-entitled one.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 Why does a Brandy Alexander taste delicious but the very thought of a Wine Alexander turn the stomach?\u00a0\u00a0 After all, brandy is simply distilled wine, right?\u00a0 (For the uninitiated, the\u00a0Brandy Alexander recipe calls for 1 oz brandy, 1 oz cream, and 1 oz cr\u00e8me de cacao.)\u00a0 The thought of blending wine, cream and cr\u00e8me de cacao is, or should be, unthinkable. \u2022\u00a0 There is an alternate universe in which hundreds of people see me as highly creative and faithfully read my blog — and even read it a second time to make sure they get all the little juicy bits I include.\u00a0 And then there is the universe everyone but me seems to live in.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0 I never guessed I would be looking up the difference between axioms, postulates and\u00a0 theorems at age 64 years, 54 days.\u00a0 I figured I left all that behind me on my last day of high-school geometry.\u00a0 But one’s interests evolve over time.\u00a0 Who knows, one day I may finally open my set of pastels and produce something that my children will argue over:\u00a0 “Dad’s pastel belongs in your house.”\u00a0 “No, it really belongs in yours<\/em>.”<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0 And I never thought, at age 21 years, 43 days, that I would one day be poring over papers about dark matter and dark energy, which together make up far more of our universe than the ordinary atoms that comprise you and me and the computer display that connects us, as well as the planet we live on, the sun we orbit and the stars we gaze upon.\u00a0 Fifty years after I was born, astronomers and physicists discovered that the stuff we can touch and see and breathe — so-called baryonic<\/em> matter — represents less than one-twentieth of the total energy of our universe.\u00a0 I find this tiny ratio humbling.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0 You, whether you are one of faith or no faith at all, will no doubt one day find yourself standing in a church pew during a service — probably a memorial service — whose tenets you do not follow.\u00a0 Inevitably, while you are standing in that pew to pay your respects, the communion tray gets passed to you, and you have to decide whether to participate or just smile and pass it to the next person in the pew.\u00a0 Either choice feels wrong, ethically or socially.\u00a0 If only that damn tray had not been handed to me!\u00a0 Why was I forced to choose?<\/p>\n And so go many of the so-called choices we face, in church or out.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0 Just as elevators in many hotels travel directly from the 12th to the 14th floor without pausing at the 13th, the sequence of U.S. Presidents is apparently skipping from the 44th to the 46th.\u00a0 Thoughts at Large<\/em> will respect this numbering.\u00a0 The last edition was No. 44 and the next edition will be No. 46 — but the one you are now reading will forever reside on the 13th floor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2022\u00a0 Most would agree that the beauty of a butterfly’s wings more than compensates for the defoliation caused by its offspring.\u00a0 Donald Trump would have us think this works in the opposite direction as well — that having beautiful offspring … Continue reading
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