Big Wind

categories: Cocktail Hour / Don't Talk About Politics / Getting Outside

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Some of the Towers on Kibby Ridge

I’m writing this column and you’re reading it on a computer powered by coal smoldering somewhere.  There may be some diesel fuel thrown in, and some waterpower, and no doubt a little biomass, a spot of nuclear, a few turns of wind.  But it’s only been ten years or so that my writing required any power at all beyond breakfast—I went from a Hermes portable typer straight to an old MS-DOS PC by Zenith, enormous learning curve, hours of study, all those arcane pathways, nothing I need to know anymore, six generations of computers later. Continue reading →

Obamas and Ospreys: A Vacation Tip

categories: Cocktail Hour / Don't Talk About Politics

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You are half-way through your vacation, Mr. President.  The kids are bored, and you’re getting antsy, too.  Now that we are friends (sort of) I want to give you a little tip about the island you are on.  Here’s the thing about it: it is lousy with ospreys!  “Ospreys?” you ask in your almost-as-deep-as mine deep voice. “What do I, the leader of the free world, and my kids, the kids of the leader of the free world, care about birds?”

A fair question, Mr. President, but I have an answer for you.  You are a sports fan, right?  And out there on the Vineyard you aren’t seeing much in the way of pro sports.  But right around the corner, in fact maybe right in your backyard at the Blue Heron Farm, the greatest athletes in the world are flying and hovering and diving.  If you don’t believe me take a gander at this video that my friend Ian just sent me:  WILD OSPREY DIVES

Impressive, right?  They really are.  They are big, black-masked birds that hover like giant Continue reading →

Obama’s Summer Reading: A Look Inside

categories: Cocktail Hour / Don't Talk About Politics

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            I hope it’s a nice day up on Martha’s Vineyard.  Nice, but not too nice.  Actually a little rain would be good—good reading weather.  Enough time for the president to find a little corner of the house, away from the girls and Michelle, and, with some rain pattering on the roof, finally get a chance to through the books he bought the other day at Bunch of Grapes.

I imagine him picking them up, looking them over, skimming here and there, and then doing what we all do despite the famous admonition—judging them by their covers. He likes the novel he bought, and is looking forward to starting it, but it seems more of a nighttime book.  He dips into the one that’s gotten all the praise but the first sentences seem lifeless and dull.  He puts it down and stares out the window. One thing he has been noticing since landing on the Vineyard is how green everything is, the world full and bursting, but at the same time the salt winds nudging it toward fall. He likes those moments of Continue reading →

My Presidential Address: Obama and I go one on one….

categories: Cocktail Hour / Don't Talk About Politics

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Watch this new video as I try to convince the prez that, rather than read the five books the Boston Globe said he should read while on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, he should just read one.  I think this is going to be big, people.  Soon I’ll be invited to hoops in the White House, beers with O and Clooney, the whole deal…….I love Bill R., I really do.  But I also like the sound of Barack and Dave’s Cocktail Hour……

Health Insurance and the Independent Writer

categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour / Don't Talk About Politics

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Cobra

When my wonderful five years at Holy Cross were up I was able to take advantage of COBRA health coverage.  The acronym stands for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, but it’s appropriately threatening, deadly snake, right.  All the act states is that employers’ insurance plans must continue to cover employees terminating for any reason for eighteen months after termination.  This protects many people, but for an example, think of someone battling cancer: can’t work anymore, gets to keep insurance.  For a while.  If she can pay.  My own COBRA amount was about $2200 a Continue reading →

Bill and Dave’s Kochtail Hour

categories: Cocktail Hour / Don't Talk About Politics

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Taxpayers, just like you and me.

Like most of my fellow Americans, I recently got a piece of mail from my state congressional representative, a survey he claims will help him determine what his priorities should be since he is, after all, representing me.   It’s a push-poll, of course, with origins in a national “conservative” vision, several local twists added to add authenticity, the most toxic proposals attributed to the weakest local links, these dumb local reps desperate for favor.  I put conservative in quotes because the vision is anything but—it’s a radical corporatist agenda, the one that operatives Continue reading →