Twozda’s Wandering Political Thoughts
The news scene is a junkyard out there. Trying to find stories of substance, truth, and facts in an age when substance, truth, and facts are dismissed by a political leader, undermined by opportunistic greedheads, and bushwhacked by right-wing schemers can be like navigating a hoarder’s apartment. Strange, confusing, unexplainable messes abound. Figuring it all out wearies me in a nano second.
I’ve winnowed down my news feed to a trusted few. 1440 is my main daily news source. Several blogs augment it with insights and links to stories. Paul Krugman, Robert Hubble, Peter Sage, Diane Ravitch, and Heather Cox Richardson add depth, relevance, and historic insights. Blue Sky provides me with a buffet of other opinions and stories. But a more recent find has proven enormously effective.
I’m not sure how I stumbled onto Breaking News USA.com. I love their format. So simple. Straightforward. No popups, no ads crowding in to obscure information, no videos about other stories running.
Click on Firehose. A list of posts with links and headlines are revealed.
Stay on the main page. Breaking news up top. Simple font.
Then, below, different sources with links to three stories from each. Daily Kos. Crooks and Liars. The New Republic. ProPublica. Wonkette. The Nation. That’s just a few of them. There are a few missing which I’d like to see included but I’ll take what they give and look up the rest. Their site is so functional, informative, and useful, its beautiful.
I hope it lasts. Check it out. It could be of use to you, too.
Unless you enjoy those messy piles of news.
Update: Dang it, I forgot to mention that Oliver Willis maintains the site. So, thank you, Oliver Willis. Cheers
The Writing Moment
Back at home with individuals not driven to write, the conversations awaken my muses. They gather to watch people, and think about their lives and times. A common concept about pain, end of life, children dealing with Mom and each other, begins evolving.
Aspects emerge. Donuts being thrown against the side of the house one frozen December Sunday. Children running away and returning. Marriages and divorces. Many marriages and divorces. Enduring secrets. Diseases that strike and tear our family apart and bring us back together.
The first stories I remember hearing about Mom was when she was fourteen. She lived in Turin, Iowa. Small town. V-E and V-J were just a few years before. The children habitually walked the streets over to watch television through a window. The window belonged to the hardware store, which was also a cafe. It had the town’s only TV, as television was then so new. The hardware store/cafe also had the town’s only phone. If a call came in for a resident, the owner’s son ran to fetch them.
Then there is Mom’s tale about the Sunday chicken. Her mother was leaving and warned Mom and her older brother, “Don’t you get this house dirty while I’m gone.” They heard the iron in their mother’s voice and the threat it carried.
But they were siblings and started teasing each other. It escalated until Mom grabbed the roasted chicken and threw it at her brother. He ducked. The chicken slammed into the wall. They watched it slide down, fixing the wall with a greasy trail. Looking at one another, they knew Mom was going to beat them.
Yes, there’s stuff to be told, as there is in many families.
Michael Seidel, writer 