Snow is falling as I write this. Christmas decorations are going up, and carols are drifting in. I love this time of year. I love sitting by the fire and watching snowflakes dance through the sky. I love the homey Christmas feeling of joy and excitement. But before I embrace any holiday cheer, I always look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving.
Thursday we mark another Thanksgiving holiday in America. We certainly have enough to be thankful for. Our country is seemingly in constant turmoil, but the holiday season can be a time of year when we come together, reflect on all that is good for all of us and be thankful for all the things we have. In many parts of the world people don’t have nearly as much for which to be thankful. Even at a time when our country is seemingly as polarized as it has ever been, we can be thankful we live in this country.
A digital footprint is interesting to me. Sometimes when I Google myself, I dig up a Myspace post from 2008 or see a loved one’s obituary.
I’ve heard how college admissions offices and employers are also increasingly using web searches to screen what applicants have posted online.
I recently read a lot about the digital footprint of sex offender registries.
Sex offenders are often restricted by law where they can live and details of their crime are made available to the public.
It is the Thanksgiving season! I try to be grateful each and every day for all of my many blessings. I know gratitude is extremely important to my own mental health but also to the universe at large. When I remind myself how grateful I am, I tend to look at things through a different lens. And that different attitude extends beyond my own narrow scope of being.
In this week’s Chronicle, you’ll find a story written by Charity Wessel regarding a shortage of officials to officiate games at the sub-varsity level. So, if you want to get some exercise and know a little about basketball, this is a great opportunity for you to make some extra cash.
My recent column on the subject of gaslighting prompted a couple of letters to the editor in which the writers agreed with my definition of the term, but vehemently disagreed with my application of it to current issues. One letter writer complained that “Ron is still focused on COVID and still totally wrong there.”
She’s correct about one thing. After more than 32 months, I am still focused on COVID. In fact I would agree I’m hyper-focused on it—“obsessed” even. Here are the dirty dozen reasons why I believe every American should still be focused on COVID.
Often when you’re writing, it’s just you and a computer. You consider the audience you’re writing for and what the response might be. You work diligently to portray everything accurately and concisely. But it is not uncommon to go weeks or even months without receiving any feedback.
It’s election time in the United States, and citizens across the county headed to the polls to decide who will govern their local towns, counties, states and federal government over the course of the next year or number of years. As always, we hope everyone got out and voted. Everyone should do their civic duty and participate in the process. Remember, if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain!
It didn’t take long after Paul Pelosi—husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi—was attacked by a wackadoo with a hammer for two things I knew would happen to start happening.
1. People on the far right would make up conspiracy theories about it. Everything bad that happens now is a giant conspiracy, didn’t you know? It must be nice to live in a world where nothing bad ever happens or there are no bad people, for it’s all just intricate conspiracies taking place. Or maybe it’s not a nice place to live. I wouldn’t know. I’m more of a deal with reality type of person.
Once a month, the Custer County Director of Equalization office comes before the Custer County Commission to update the commission on the monumental task it has begun to undertake at the direction of the commission. That task, which they have accepted (as if they really had a choice), is to reappraise every structure in the entire county. It’s a monumental task for such a small office. Not only does this mean the teams have to go out into the field and observe and measure all of the structures, but they then have to enter that information into the county’s database.
