David Almandsmith It started out as a typical request over the phone. “There’s a bird flopping around in front of our house and we’re afraid it might get run over or attacked by someone’s cat. Could you come get it?” At that time International Bird Rescue was located in the building adjacent to (and owned by) the … Read more
David Almandsmith CHAPTER 1 Unusual object detected approaching Planet Castor. Spectrum indicates extreme temperature. John stopped loosening bolts on the motor he was repairing in the maintenance shed on the outskirts of New Moscow. “Huh. Munchie, you can see something that far off? Must be pretty freaking big.” Negative. Too small to resolve. Detected by … Read more
Establishing an identical minimum wage for EVERYWHERE in the United States will: shortchange workers in many urban areas where the costs of living are high; and it will unduly handicap local firms in their efforts to stay in business where local economies are depressed. Instead, we should “index” the local minimum wage to the LOCAL … Read more
There aren’t many cats along Patricia Lane. Across the street and one house up, lives an older couple with a pudgy Calico that they never let out of doors. I cannot think of any others except Tam-Malacha, our Siamese we call “Tam.” There are several dogs that live along our one-block street and each learned … Read more
Summertime in El Cajon, California and it is already afternoon with a hot sun and clear air. I’m bored and my chores are long since completed. I watched television but now all three channels are showing soap operas. I hear the work-up softball game in the field behind our house, but only faintly. The players … Read more
Behind our house on Patricia Lane is a large field. It’s probably a hundred yards wide and 300 yards east to west. Across the field on the south side are the Hales. We bought Dolly, our horse, from the Hales but we pay them to take care of her since they’ve got a stable. They’ve … Read more
A new family just moved into the last house on our side of Patricia Lane but we haven’t met them yet. Patricia Lane ends at a barricade with a field and drainage ditch beyond there and has about 10 houses on each side of the block-long street. It doesn’t have any sidewalks so we get … Read more
(San Diego 1951) I like our neighbors a lot but some of the older guys get into fights sometimes. Gary’s place is just over in the next row of buildings and his parents are the nicest folk so I half dragged my parents over to meet them last week. They hit it off real good. … Read more
7 March 2021 Percy (Perseverance Rover) has been feeling its oats, doing calisthenics, and moving about at its landing spot dubbed “Octavia Butler Landing.” ((Butler’s 1998 book, Parable of the Talents, tells of the election of the populist, misogynistic, xenophobic Andrew Steele Jarret to the White House, whose rallying cry is “Make America Great Again.” … Read more
The Foundation for Critical Thinking has an excellent definition of “Critical Thinking”: [T]he intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. Note that the above definition is no less accurate when we … Read more