For Want of a Theme

 

This blog has suffered through abandonment and fresh starts, indecision and neglect, and the lack of a theme. It is that need of a unifying theme that has had me stop and start so often. I began with politics, but soon saw that meant dealing with idiots, so I changed to religion and philosophy. That won’t work as a theme either. There is only so much I can say about the incredulity of religious claims.

I considered a “How to Clean” theme but, though a clean freak, I am no expert on the subject.

Architecture. That would be great. I do love the fields of art and architecture, but there is a problem: the cost of graphics. I cannot at this time afford the cost of images of those works on the internet.

So, I’ve chosen to blog with no theme. I have a wide variety of interests on which I think I have something to say. With no unifying theme, I can write about cleaning hacks, post-modern architecture, the current political climate and its threat to the democratic experiment, the military, books and literature, my own short stories and essays, and even the adventures of an amateur cook. The field is wide open.

In the coming days I will post a short story centered on illicit sex, another, a historical fiction featuring the Joseph McCarthy political with hunts of the 1950s, and a bio and review of one of my literary heroes.

I hope that the freedom to write a themeless blog will be as entertaining and informative as it is liberating.

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The Failure of Magical Reality

 

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

The Failure of Magical Reality

If I were a religious person, I would be praying that our post-modern experiment with relative truths and "alternative facts" is done. Finis. Kaput. 

The January 6 insurrection was, we can only hope, the death knell of that ignoble episode in our history. The trials and imprisonment of some of the leaders of that event, and the recent banning of its cheerleader, Rudy Giuliani, from practicing law in New York are encouraging signs that the legal system agrees that, yes, there is a reality separate from our fantasies. Magical reality is an entertaining concept in movies and literature but has no place in Ideology.

Facts are facts and ideological fantasies and propaganda don't change that, regardless of the number of people who believe it. Reality doesn't care about our denial of it. But it appears to me that Rudy, like the pillow guy, will deny reality even while the world points and laughs at their folly.

Not me. I feel the same sympathy for them that I feel for any person who has made bad choices.