Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

I’m usually far more prepared for my weekly scribbling, but I’m just behind today. I’m exhausted by everything going on at work, at home, and globally. Remembering 9/11 isn’t all that fun. We had friends in NYC and it took days to hear whether they were all right, and we heard that in a roundabout…

When is Labor Day? In the U.S. and Canada, it’s the first Monday in September. For most of Europe, it’s May 1. It’s not May 1 in the U.S. for reasons that you can probably guess. Yes, we celebrate it later because we don’t want to strengthen socialist (and anarchist) movements by associating it with…

Cool, dry air has descended on New England. It’s nice but not what we usually get in late August. We’ve had so many hot and humid days this summer that the contrast seems greater than usual. We just came off another hot week and next week looks like typical New England weather – high 80’s…

Sometimes it’s not worth looking at what happened in a year. 1991 was known for Operation Desert Storm. How’d that turn out? Oh yeah, leaving Afghanistan is tied in with that in a way. Maybe movies will be better. Let’s see; there’s Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, Cape Fear, Soapdish, and many, many more.…

It’s hurricane preparation season up here in the Northeast. Fred hit us with some drenching rain but not much else (wind, etc.). Depending on where it tracks, Henri could hit us hard, but for now, it looks like we won’t get much beyond the rain. Predictions of when the rain begins keep getting pushed out,…

I just did a quick search on what happened in 1986. Anwer’s not much. Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson. Strange, a man nicknamed “Randy Andy” back in the 1980s is now in trouble for consorting with Jeffrey Epstein and is accused of having sex with underage girls. In 1986 I was living in Newton, MA,…

Well, it happened. Met up with friends last night and had a great time. This was the first time since COVID that I saw old friends, and we had a fantastic evening. These were friends we met in college, and it took me a few minutes to remember that we’ve known each other for over…

I never questioned what it meant by the dog days of summer. I knew that was the time that it was really hot, but I also knew that they were probably the worst days for dogs. It was the only time my husky was logy. But the dog days are named for Sirius, the dog…

Sonic Sunday? To go with Manic Monday? I’m a fan of both the Bangles and Prince, but not that song. Not sure that Sundays are my fun day, either. Now I’ll have that song in my head for days. I’d like to give it away – maybe airing it out here will help. Right now…

It’s going to rain here today…again. We’ve had a wet summer, not that it’s helped the dwindling water supplies in the area. Most towns around here still have a mandatory water ban, as the rains have still not raised the water tables enough. We don’t live in the desert southwest, either. Saturday was nice, so…