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Dad’s Beefy-Veggie Soup
I have never cared for vegetable soup or for brothy, beef soup. Until now.
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I’ve been searching…
…every which-a-way. (The Coasters, 1957) When we were all just first hearing about the “web” in the early 90s, I worked in the software business in Palo Alto, California, then and now the heart of Silicon Valley. Tim Berners-Lee had invented the World Wide Web (aka www.) and Univeral Resource…
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bringing jobs back home
We can’t go back to the days when most of America worked in manufacturing. Ubiquitous computing, robotics, globalization, wage-pressure, massive productivity increases, and being way behind the 8-ball on job re-training all mean we can’t re-create the American job market of the decades from the 1870’s to the 1970’s. However,…
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M&A
My first grown-up job out of the Army was to work as a researcher for a mergers & acquisitions (M&A) consulting firm based in McLean (home to the CIA), Virginia. Our clients were large New York and American Stock Exchange, publicly-listed companies bent on growing their earnings bases by acquiring…
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community
Last evening, we heard a David Brooks lecture nearby that confirmed our appreciation for what he says and how he says it. We’re big fans. He gave a preview of his next book, an assessment of, among other things, what needs to happen to make it through our current “slough…
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bookends
I’ve been a Bob Dylan fan since the release of his second album, Freewheelin’. I was 15. Last Friday, I attended my fifth (only) Dylan concert and the third in Chicago. It was a fitting bookend to my first two concerts in 1963 and 1965. On December 27, 1963, Dylan…
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floods
In October, 1955, we had a terrible flood in my home town that left three feet of water in our basement. I was eight. I still remember standing on the basement stairs watching stuff float by — years of photos and memorabilia on the loose, the past drowning. Much was…
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back in the saddle
Note to self: You need to start writing again here on the Guy Cicero blog. It’s good for you! Don’t expect that anyone will notice. Don’t expect “likes” or “attaboys” or great reviews. Just do it. Show your respect and appreciation for all the bloggers you follow who crank out…
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a post-truth world?
Chuck Todd on Meet the Press recently referred to the 2016 Presidential campaign as happening in the “post-truth world.” Add this to the post-church world and the post-modern world, and what you have is a whole new world. Get on board, or not. The very idea of a post-truth world sets my…
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a lifelong Republican, no more, redux
I cried when the country elected JFK over Ike’s man Dick Nixon. It’s true; I was thirteen and a lifelong Republican, or so I thought. The Democrats got lucky again when we elected their Georgia peanut farmer, (although he turned out more than OK as an ex-President), and later, a glad-handing,…
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adulthood
I blame no one. NPR ran a piece this morning on a school that teaches 20-somethings some basic skills helpful to running an adult life: money management, making a bed, etc. Some, according to the reporter, think this is coddling—that they don’t deserve to have someone show them skills that others…
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Never
Never in my lifetime have I seen So much, so fast, so soon. Facts, ideas, opinions, innuendo, Flying at me wherever I go to watch and listen. Being 69, television’s child, I remember Little Rock and Einstein’s dead, and the Hungarian Revolt and Sputnik paranoia, and Khrushchev in Disneyland, and…
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let’s review the history
Just about every day, I hear something on the news or Facebook, or in conversation that leads me to think, Wait a minute. Don’t you remember that….” whatever. And being a history enthusiast, even with all the faults and biases of historians (like Thucydides), I always like to replay in my mind…
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Travelin’ man
Source: Travelin’ Man About to become one of my favorite foodies, Michael Ruhlman has it all: perspective, perspicacity, and panache. Thanks to friend and foodie Adrian Vigliano for the referral. Enjoy.
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Dylan the poet-1965
He was called a poet from the start, and commented about himself, “I’m a poet; I know it; I hope I don’t blow it.” (I Shall Be Free No. 10, 1962). His poetry was a medium inside a medium, delivering mind-shaping ideas and observations that confirmed our suspicions. The Guardian,…
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globalization
Get with it. Globalization is good for you. Well, most of the time.
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frontierland
I recently completed a vacation trip to California from Illinois, by car: Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada—and returning through Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Open spaces, not many people, an amazing number of wind farms —a very different experience from what you see east of the Mississippi. It’s been awhile…
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on pins and needles
I expect excruciating suspense from a Hitchcock movie, not so much from the presidential primaries. When will Trump followers finally say, “OK, we’ve had our fun. We didn’t think it would get out of hand like this. We didn’t mean it. We’re sorry.” But isn’t this really something? I’ve been…
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getting old
The trouble with getting old, if you’re not careful, is coming to believe that you’ve got it all figured out. By the time you get old, the temptation to figure it out has been with you a long time. Once you start believing that you’ve got it all figured out,…
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guy gets political
The GuyCicero.com tagline is personal reflections on politics, society and culture…. What better time to get political in what is shaping up to be a presidential campaign year destined to be among the great ones? Ought to make some use of that poli sci degree. My track record at predicting who will…
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the freedom to do good
I saw The Monuments Men movie recently and thought it lived up to the promotional interviews on Letterman and elsewhere with its various stars. Several years ago, a rich Texan named Robert Edsel got interested and then got really interested in the story of the actual “Monuments Men” from World…
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the meaning of Christmas
The advent of joy. The best of intentions. The rush to get ready. The brightness of light. The satisfaction of knowing. The quiet of night. The celebration of family. The silence of contentment. The starkness of reality. The triumph of peace.
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Stories to tell….
Having reached the age of 68, I seem more and more compelled to think on the past. Mostly, in my time, I have felt like Little Big Man (a book by Thomas Berger and movie with Dustin Hoffman)—a witness to great history, but a very minor player. In telling my…
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It was 50 years ago today…that Dylan taught the band to play.
Flash: Folk music star says, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm…no more.” Some clapped; some boo’ed; Pete Seeger fumed, but got over it. The rest of us took notice and tried to understand. It’s embarrassing now to admit that I didn’t really get it. I’d been hanging on every word,…
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