Charles Sheehan-Miles's Blog, page 27
May 7, 2012
Finding forgiveness for murder
“I’ll tell you the truth, Sheriff. We charged across Iraq and killed everything in our goddamn path, we left a trail of burning vehicles and broken bodies hundreds of miles long. If it moved, then it was the enemy, and we killed our fair share of civilians too. And you people sat back here and [...]
Reconnecting with old friends
Do you use Facebook? When I first got online, it was the very early nineties. I had a dial up unix shell account through Georgia State University, and later on an account with Delphi (both of these were text based only, because, well, MS-DOS). When I wanted to write a friend, I got out a [...]
May 5, 2012
The terrible two (teenagers, that is)
So last night I had a long talk with the kids about important things. To be specific, about identifying what are the most frequent causes of fights in our house, which are sometimes too stressful and upsetting for all of us. Basically it comes down to two things: homework, and chores. When I was a [...]
May 4, 2012
Legitimizing Indefinite Detention and Torture
Andrew Rosenthal writes in the New York Times yesterday (Tortured Logic) about the unfortunate decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, granting immunity to John Woo, a former Bush administration official, for his actions which lead to the torture and abuse of Jose Padilla. Rosenthal correctly calls the judgment what it is: nonsense. Let [...]
May 3, 2012
Avoiding and preventing burn-out
One thing I learned about myself a long time ago is that I am prone to overcommitting. I get intensely productive: deeply involved in work, in personal projects, in writing, various side businesses, and have bursts of intense energy where I’m doing lots and lots of stuff. I have a hard time saying no, and [...]
May 2, 2012
Awful things people say to waitresses and waiters
Continuing on my train of thought from yesterday. I was writing about finances then, but right now I’m writing about dignity. There are some people out there who just seem to enjoy feeling superior to others. Some do it over religion. Some do it over lack of religion. Some do it over jobs, class, personal [...]
May 1, 2012
VA Faces Two Crises: Paul Sullivan
My old friend, veterans advocate Paul Sullivan (formerly with Veterans for Common Sense and now outreach director at Bergman and Moore) writes in the Bay Citizen about the crises facing VA. Hopefully, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and Congress will “get it” soon and fix VA’s understaffed mental healthcare facilities and VA’s delay and error-prone disability [...]
Driving the working poor into the dust
“Charles, can you print off my last four pay stubs? I need them for….” Since I made my career change to the restaurant business, this has been a frequent, regular request I get from some of my employees. Why? Because they need them to qualify for various government related benefits: primarily food stamps and medical [...]
April 30, 2012
On being young and in love
See, there was this girl…. That’s a really bad way to start a blog entry, especially when you’ve been happily married for nearly twenty years. But I’m thinking Veronica will understand (let’s hope!!!) since I’m writing about ancient history. What I’m writing about today is risk, rewards, heartbreak, and being young and in love. How [...]
April 28, 2012
An Interview with Jackie Trippier Holt
A couple of months ago I read a fantastically interesting novel called Annie, the Doll, its Thief, And Her Loverby Jackie Trippier Holt. The book follows the return of Kate to the industrial north of England after the death of her father. She’s there to clean out the old house and quickly return to her [...]
