Skip to main content

Normal Service to Resume Next Week. . .

 

Arielle Anderson, Alexandria Verner, and Brian Fraser.

Three students here at Michigan State University died senselessly in yet another (apparently random) mass shooting earlier this week.  Five others were seriously injured.  

A colleague, a man with whom I have served on a committee in the recent past, taught two of them and saw them shot during his evening class on Cuban history.  

Not the first time something like this has happened in the U.S., and I expect not the last.  There really are no words to adequately describe or explain any of this. 

But yes.  Let's do keep shouting loudly about and lobbying for the right to keep and bear arms.  You know.  To keep that secretive world army at bay, which is just poised to invade beyond the Canadian border.  

If finding an academic job, picking up, and moving were easier, I am now ready to relocate to a somewhat more peaceful society.  What a world we have created.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Comments

  1. So sorry, H-U. As you may know a similar senseless shooting occurred here at UVA recently. It is all so sad.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Charlottesville. Yes, I recall that particular tragedy too. You never think it can happen in your own neck of the woods. And then it does. What is wrong with us??!!

    H-U

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All opinions are welcome here. Even those that differ from mine. But let's keep it clean and civil, please.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Popular Posts

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

    A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall.  I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation.  Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold.   Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario.  But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

The Power of Ideas. . .

  T he end is nigh!  The autumn semester/term approaches.  And while we still have almost two months of summer left according to the calendar, "Summer is over and gone," as the crickets sang in Charlotte's Web .  At least for those of us who head back to the classroom in less than a month.   In advance of a meeting with my program director late Monday morning, I spent about 40 minutes total during the weekend to jot down several ideas about planned workshops and related activities for the coming 2024-2025 academic year.  At an opportune moment, I mentioned "I have a few ideas," and opened my leather portfolio.   My director was highly receptive to almost everything I suggested, and we had a very productive planning session for just over 90 minutes.  Just about everything I sketched out on Sunday aligns with his own ideas.  It's nice when meetings go that well, and two related things occur to me in hindsight. One, it pays to exercise...

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

  A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh.  Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan.  Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt.  Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode.   However, I was not completely useless yesterday!  I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch.  The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings,  took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific.  I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 19...