The Write Launch is a monthly on-line literary magazine. It publishes a wide spectrum of essays, poetry and short fiction. The August issue includes a short story from me, about one person’s journey from Kansas City to Sonoma.
Category: Random Thoughts
What doesn’t fit elsewhere
Ross Island Returns!
Amazon Effect – Part 1
The city of San Francisco is about to put into effect a 14% increase in garbage-collection fees. The reason: the Internet. Well, not exactly the Internet itself, but on-line shopping and its attendant packaging.
As so-called brick-and-mortar stores lose business to Internet merchants, the increase in the waste & recycle stream is increasing proportionately. Cardboard, cellophane, polystyrene, clamshell containers, plastic shipping pillows are overwhelming recycling centers. San Francisco has banned plastic bags and foam trays, but the prohibitions don’t affect merchandise shipped from outside the city. (“The City” if you’re a SF resident.) The high-tech pedometer encased in its own packaging on the store shelf, is put inside more packaging to be shipped 
to you.
Recology, the company contracted to handle San Francisco’s waste – 625 tons of recycling per day – says it needs the increase to keep up with the volume and complexity of materials to be recycled. That reverse-osmosis-purified drinking water comes with three types of plastic: one for the bottle, another for the cap, and yes, a third for the label.
Honoring Mothers
Mother’s Day became an official U.S. holiday in 1914, after years of effort by Anna Jarvis. Anna’s mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, initiated “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in West Virginia to teach women how to care for their children. After the Civil War, she promoted “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” to connect mothers with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation.
Within a decade, Anna Jarvis was fighting against the commercialization of the holiday. She was even arrested for protesting at a Mother’s Day carnation sale.
“Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.”
Stevie Wonder
“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
Abraham Lincoln
“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
Calvin Trillin
“In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don’t baptize the children of single mothers because they weren’t conceived in the sanctity of marriage. These are today’s hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation.”
Pope Francis
“I don’t mind if two men fall in love, fine. Two women, fine. But I flinch when I think of two Jewish women getting together and having a child because the idea of having two Jewish mothers makes my head explode. I have one; I couldn’t handle two.”
Gary Shandling
“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”
Mark Twain
“June Cleaver didn’t keep her house in perfect order; the prop man did it.”
Overheard at a family gathering…
Jesus: “Coming, mother.” [What does she want now.]
Mary: “They’re out of wine.”
Jesus: “Didn’t they know how many people were coming to this wedding?” [And you expect me to do something about that?]
Mary: “Don’t be a smart guy. They need your help.”
Jesus: “Ma, I’m not ready to start doing that kind of stuff.”
Mary: “I know son, but can’t you do this one thing for your mother?”
Jesus: “But… mom!”
Mary: “Just this one time?”
Jesus: “Well, okay. For you, mom.”
Sentinel on the Willamette
A Tough Month for Alex Jones
If you are not familiar with Alex Jones, you are fortunate. Mr. Jones is a venomous, right-wing, spittle-spewing, hate-radio host.
He counts our current president among his fans. If you feel an urge to be slimed, he’s easy to find on YouTube or his fetid web site InfoWars.com.
In the midst of a contentious divorce and custody battle – his ex-wife contends “He is not a stable character.” – Jones contends he is simply a performance artist. He is really a nice guy, not at all like his public persona.
Now the nation’s largest yogurt maker is suing him. Chobani, a major employer in Twin Falls Idaho, has filed suit claiming that Jones and InfoWars published “false statements, including the false accusations that Chobani was ‘caught importing migrant rapists’ and that Chobani’s plant has brought ‘crime and tuberculosis’ to the Twin Falls community.” Chobani is a major employer in Idaho and welcomes refugee immigrants.
If Alex Jones’s media empire crumbles, maybe a position in the Trump administration will be made available for him.