Mark Paxson's Blog, page 13

A Song For Today

The last song I shared was Certainly Never by Matthew Ryan. Listening to that song and thinking of some other songs I have on various playlists, I realized I need to make a new playlist dedicated to what I call Americana. Some would say that it’s country music, but I don’t think it is. Matthew […]

Another Trazadone Dream

First, I need to provide some background. In the 1990s, my first job out of law school was primarily as an administrative hearing officer. And in that capacity, I mostly conducted special education hearings. If parents were dissatisfied with how their child’s needs were being met, they could request a hearing and if the dispute […]

Books I’ve Been Reading

The last three pieces of fiction I’ve read offer an interesting insight into why reading can be such an adventure, sometimes incredible, sometimes kind of meh, and sometimes absolutely horrible. In other words, here comes the good, the bad, and the ugly of reading. The Good I recently “met” Sheila Young via Twitter. She’s Canadian, […]

What The Right-Wing Will Never Admit

According to this article, police currently believe that the individuals involved in the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory parade yesterday were juveniles and … it was a “dispute.” Imagine this … if we lived in a country that wasn’t dominated by a minority who believes that the 2nd Amendment allows unfettered access and […]

Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman’s performance at the Grammy’s this week is getting all sorts of attention. Rightfully so from my perspective. Chapman is one of those artists I listened to on repeat years ago. Her first album is a classic that I haven’t listened to in a long time, but her performance at the Grammy’s led me […]

Another Trazadone Dream

I tried Trazadone last spring. At the same time I was recovering from COVID and taking a different medication for a health issue. All three of those things — COVID, Trazadone, the other med — included sleep disruption/insomnia as a potential side effect. When my insomnia returned and took over my life, I quit both […]

Say Hello To Moose

Readers of this blog will know that we lost our two dogs last year. One to years of health issues that culminated in a grand mal seizure and the other to a sudden, unexpected cancer that there was no return from. As we approached those unfortunate events, I made clear that if we were to […]

Killers of the Flower Moon

I read this book a few years ago. It’s the type of history I enjoy. A small little slice of something that happened that we’re never taught in history class. In this instance, the discovery of oil on Osage land in Oklahoma early in the 20th century led to massive wealth for the Osage, and, […]

A Song For Today

I’m listening to the first playlist I made on Spotify. Around 700 songs that, for the most part, were songs I first heard on Spotify. Songs that hit me where I was at the time. I don’t listen to that playlist very often now. But when I do, I find songs that I’ve completely forgotten. […]

A Book I’m Reading

Because this is important, I’m sharing this here. The time for passivity is past. Sane liberals and sane conservatives need to work together to put out the fires on our fringes. This is about the fire on the right.