Well, that would certainly explain the sudden scarcity of medium-sized rodents around here.
Before we get too far along, let me confess an act — an in-act, actually (inactually?) — of idiocy. Normally I’m within arm’s reach of a camera. That has allowed me to capture many fleeting moments I would have missed otherwise. But this time I didn’t make a picture.
Wimbledon began on June 28. After not being contested in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, tennis’s premier tournament is back. This era of tennis has been utterly dominated by three men: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic. If Djokovic were to win the tournament, he would join Federer and Nadal at the very top of the all-time list, in terms of major victories, with 20. Most observers believe that since Djokovic remains at the top of the rankings at this very moment, and is five years younger than Roger Federer, while being more dominant on all surfaces than Nadal, he will be the most decorated major champion in tennis history before long. Roger Federer, the great Swiss legend, still has something to say about that, at age 39.
If you were here that afternoon, you remember it.
At about 6 p.m. nine years ago yesterday, a line of powerful thunderstorms swept across our area. It would get famous a few hours later, when it struck more fashionable parts of the country. Nine years ago today, the lights were out in Athens County.
I nervously hit the buy button and wondered what in the world I was doing. I was ordering a portable air compressor and I was excited about it. I’ll confess I never thought I would get excited about an air compressor, but after a bad afternoon hoping from gas station to gas station only to find their air pumps broken and finally forking out $2 for not-enough-air-to-fill four tires, I wanted to try something different.
Tim and Jason return to our fearless Snail-cast, this time to discuss the recent Supreme Court decision concerning religious freedom, the story of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the importance of the Minor Prophets in Bible Study and the appeal of “localism.”
It may be about time to get rid of the old Gravely. The last time I wrote about this venerable piece of equipment it spawned a reaction from a Gravely fan in northern Ohio so strident that Athens NEWS editor Terry Smith wanted to call the authorities, lest (or perhaps in hope of a good story should it happen) the angry fellow come round and murder me.
Probably all of us have some frustration with one or more of the Tech Giants who are being targeted by Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s “Ending Platform Monopolies Act.” It is tempting to cheer on efforts to offer a cure to common Big Tech disease, checking their power over us. But, like a layperson coming up with the wrong treatment for a serious illness, this and other similar proposals, dangerously operate on oversimplification that threatens to make our technology much worse while ignoring the genuine Big Tech problems staring us down.
Sometimes when the air is just right, its invisible ingredients comprising a particular admixture of humidity, pollen, fragrance, and who knows what, it is as if a person has been carried back in time.
Roger Federer won three matches at the French Open this year, and withdrew before his fourth-round match with a young Italian star. Roger had to fight to win his third-round match against an opponent he had never played before, and it was quite early in the morning of the next day.
I’m tired of it. I’m tired of every currently running TV show someone tells me to watch being littered with content that might make even the proverbial sailor blush. With so many forms of entertainment now freed from the reach of the FCC’s decency rules, it is now countercultural if dialogue or song lacks a peppering of the coarsest words. Is this really the best we can do?