"I Will Always Love You!"

                                       "I Will Always Love You!"

Everybody has probably already said just about everything there is to be said about this song and Whitney Houston’s ability to belt it out like an angel.

What hasn’t been said is how challenging it is to live up to the words in the song.

Sure, if we have a “civil” split with someone our stated hope, to anyone that will listen, is that your soon to be previous love will find happiness and love in their lives.
Right, love and happiness with someone else!
Really!
How many of us are so sacrificial that we can actually let someone leave, or leave ourselves, hoping they find all that you were unable, or unwilling to offer, in the arms of someone else.
Wow, this is asking for a lot from mere mortal man.

Is it just me that harbors those wild and crazy thoughts that she will come back just because I will always love her, or are other people equally crazy?
Does she actually care what I am feeling?
Does she think of me at all?
Wasn’t it me that turned on that song, between tears, when she was packing up to search for the rest of her life?

Now, on top of everything else, I have the capacity to look in her window, thanks to Facebook, and see just how happy she has become without me.

Well Whitney, I guess on balance it was all worthwhile!

I’ll try harder.

Thanks for coming this way and leaving your incredible song behind. You said it way better than Dylan…

Barnes and Noble Closed?

                                                       What!!

Photo by M Barrett Miller

Barnes and Noble closed their store in the University Village, in Seattle, a couple of weeks ago!
How could that have happened?
A major book merchant, and anchor store, going dark in a thriving shopping Mecca may be the canary in the cave.
Was the rent really jacked beyond affordability?
Why would a “mall” manager make it difficult to stay as a cornerstone in the sea of Chinese product options throughout the mall?
Have book sales dropped so far that it doesn’t make any sense to have a premier store in a mall anymore?
Are we subtlety being moved to Kindles, iPads, Nooks, as bookstores seem to disappear right in front of our eyes?
Is this our fault?
Is this my fault since I have cut back on buying books?
Yes, I’ve increased ordering books from my neighborhood library rather than forking out twenty or more bucks for a new book.
Yes, I downloaded a copy of the “Quiet Australian” written by a friend rather than pay the thirty plus dollars for his print on demand edition. Have you ever tried to read a 1,600 page book on an iPhone!?
Yes, the books I have written also have download ability. Yep, I make three times as much on an electronic edition than I do on a print edition.
Yes, I quit my subscription to the New York Times and the Seattle Times!
Yes, I am getting a lot of my news surfing news sites and listening to Progressive radio.
So, what’s left for me at the University Village mall?
I can get ripped on “Blue Indonesian” coffee at Starbucks and stagger over to the happiest store in the world, Apple, and drool over what I can’t afford.

As Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy... and he is us.”
In this case maybe it’s the guy looking back at me from inside the mirror!

They are not all Crooks!

                                                    They’re not all Crooks!

Seattle street art. Photo by M Barrett Miller

I seem to be hearing more and more people say, “Ah, they’re all crooks!” whenever any positive comments are made about a particular politician.

Most recently I heard it while a group of volunteers were serving a lunch and complimenting the president on his State of the Union address. There were comments made by others about how it was all “just political” and that he didn’t mean anything by his comments beyond trying to lure in the unsuspecting. One of the people in the group asked a detractor whom they were going to support. The comment about all of them being crooks was readily accepted by a number of people inclined to vote for anyone but the current president.

It appears that those making such statements are unable, or unwilling; to sift through their minds the choices available that might be running au contraire to their preconceived ideas.

Enough with the equivalency remarks!

Everyone is not a crook and everyone doesn’t cheat on his wife or stash money in overseas banks. Not everyone is richer than Croesus or had a lace-curtain upbringing.
There are, believe it or not, many members of Congress, the Senate, the judiciary and yes, in the White House, that are upstanding members of society dedicated to doing their level best to serve our country.
Sure, everyone has personal foibles but they don’t deserve to be constantly lumped in with those that have truly jumped the shark.

They are not all crooks!!!