Sophie's Story

     In the interest of full disclosure, I did not listen to any part of last night's presidential debate. I haven't watched a presidential debate in many years.     To me a debate between two or more people seeking to be elected to lead in any office should consist of the parties involved explaining how they would deal with various challenges that are occurring at the time. Since such discussions of policy do not lend itself to high ratings and TV viewership, these "debates" have disintegrated to exchanges of insults and grandstanding.     In many high schools, colleges and universities across the country, debate is a competitive sport.  There are strict rules governing the conduct of debate contests. I have looked at several sites that have competitive debate rules. I propose that any debates between those seeking for national pollical should be conducted according to the following rules. To simplify matters I am assuming a two person debate.   The debate will be co

   Helen was the Table Topics Master (or Mistress if you want to be correct) this week at Toastmasters. I always enjoy it when Helen has this role because she comes up with questions that are interesting, but not overly difficult. (I don't mind challenge, but there are some topics that are just too hard.)    She began one of her questions by talking about a night when she couldn't sleep. She picked up a book she had been reading thinking that it would help. The mystery she picked up was so engaging that it kept her awake reading.     The person that answered the question talked about a book on the history of philosophy that he had just finished reading. It was a long book and a hard book to read. He had to reread parts of it to make sure he understood it. He said that he had enjoyed reading it.    His answer reminded me of a book that has been sitting on my bookshelf for a long time. The book is Foucault's Pendulum. It is a mystery written by Umberto Eco. Eco was an Italian

     We are nearing the end of the political campaign season and I am looking forward to it. Part of the reason I've stopped watching television is because I've had enough of attack ads and mudslinging. I'm disgusted by the amount of money that people running for office have to raise. I live in a city where people are living in tents and people can't afford medications. Yet millions of dollars are wasted on campaign ads and people to get dirt on their opponents.    Maybe I've written this already, but it is worth repeating. Why don't we, the public, the voters, treat candidates like job applicants? Someone could write a job application for each elected office. Anyone wishing to run for office would have to  fill out an application. The filled out application would be made available in several formats so all voters would have a chance to review it.    There would be no debates. Instead there would be job interviews. Candidates for state offices would be interview

     Hi ! This is Skamp!     Some of you may have been wondering how I'm doing now that Colby is gone. (Although C assures me that Colby is not gone but in the spirit world, happy and no longer sick) I'm doing all right now.   I won't lie to you. It was very hard at first, I missed Colby a lot. He's my brother and I've known him for a long time. He was fun to be around and very humble. He used to finish my food if I left my dish without eating all of it. It seems strange that I can leave my food dish and it will not be touched. All his things have been packed up and put away. The only thing left is his blanket on the cat tree and some of the toys that he liked to play with. It was hard not having someone to hang out with after the humans have gone to bed. I felt very alone because I'm the only cat in the house right now.    I was very busy the first few weeks. Colby was the Chief House Cat, which meant that he was in charge of keeping an eye on our territory and

     Several months ago I was bored and started surfing You Tube on my iPad. I was tired of watching the same A Football Life episodes over and over again when I stumbled upon a channel that had short informational videos about the history of various people of royal birth. There were videos about the children and grand children of Queen Victoria of England, royal wedding customs and the off spring of a Danish king whose name escapes me at the moment. (It's either Christian or Frederick apparently the kings of Denmark alternate between the two names.)   One of the videos was about women from the United States who married into foreign royal families. The narrator quoted a statistic that caught my ear. She said that since the United States does not have a monarchy, girls born in this country can't dream of marrying a prince. However there have been more women that have married into royal families than have been on the Supreme Court. Then the narrator said, "There's still

      Sunday I did something I had not done in a very long time. I played my harp at church.     C and I are sometimes asked to play a hymn during our worship service and at holiday worship services. C plays a guitar and I play either my hammered dulcimer or my 21 string lap harp. Most of the time I play the dulcimer. The last time we were asked to provide music, C wanted to play the hymn 'Be Still My Soul'. We had played it a long time ago and we did a good job. I was nervous about playing it because I play it on the harp.     I can't remember exactly how long it had been since I played the harp at church. I remembered that I wanted to play 'Angels We Have Heard on High' and thought that it would sound best on a harp. (I couldn't resist playing a song about angels on a harp.) The challenge with playing the harp is the hand tremors I have. They aren't bad most of the time, but being nervous makes the tremors worse. At that time playing in church made me nerv

     C has many Facebook friends and enjoys seeing what they are doing. One of them is Mama Nee. She is in her middle 90s and lives in South Carolina.     A few days ago she posted that there was nothing to watch on TV except sci-fi, action, horror, thriller or suspense movies. She wrote about how during World War II movies were reassuring. Movies helped with morale, comforted and made people feel good. There were love stories and musicals, happy musicals to entertain and make people smile even during that uncertain time. She wrote that we need more of this kind of entertainment and also more uplifting music.    I have to agree with her. It seems most of what is on TV are crime shows, "reality shows" and talent contests. I miss sitcoms. Shows like Scrubs, The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Frasier, Cheers, MASH and WKRP in Cincinnati. These shows were funny and entertaining. They had a cast of characters that you could like or maybe identify with. Sometimes they

        A few weeks ago I watched the funeral of John Lewis. I went on to read the last article that he had written. I watched the movie John Lewis: Good Trouble. It was inspiring and hopeful. It made me wish that I lived back in those times where people joined together and got things done. What must it have been like to have the belief that you and other people could change things? Make things better. More fair. What would it be like to know that you could help make life better for everyone?    I would like to feel like that. Right now I think that it is impossible.    I'm not normally a pessimistic person, but I can't help it. Nothing I see in human behaviour is leading me to believe that it is possible for a group to get together and effect change. I'm looking at the groups of people of colour who are demonstrating and asking to be treated with dignity and to have equal rights and equal opportunities. They are right. They should have that. They shouldn't have to wond

     The usual spot for my birthday dinner has pared down it's menu considerably. The one thing I like to order is longer being served. I wanted to find a new place for my birthday dinner. There was a place that we could go, but it was in Minneapolis. C and I are a bit scared of going into Minneapolis. There have been violent riots and shootings. We debated for several days. C consulted news reports and did some research to see if the part of downtown we planned to go to was safe.    Finally he made a reservation. They recommended that we park in the ramp over the restaurant. We made an early reservation so we would be out of the city before dark.    Our reservation was on a Friday. About 40 minutes or so before our reservation time,  we left our house to go to dinner. The drive wasn't too bad until we hit one patch of slow traffic. We almost called the restaurant to let them know we would be late. Then the traffic loosened up and we were on our way.    As soon as we hit the ed