Daily Prompt

A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

If you look at this page via a Windows browser, there should be a logo on left side of the tab at top, a little green-brown-yellow blob.

It is a photo of a duck. I first placed the picture there, seen full-size at top, as an inside joke with myself, but the story is worth sharing. (Most of this first appeared in a post from December 2013, “A Duck About Town.”)

The photo was taken in 2013 (with friends alongside: LT and HG), and it was added at the very last second on the very first post written later that same year. If you have looked at this web site once or a thousand times (thanks, mom!), the duck has been there, on whatever device you use, each time. It is this site’s mascot, a companion to each piece I write.
Read More

An Exquisite Trolling

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

For those who read everything published everywhere every day, as I do not, the name of the person who writes the television listings for the Sunday Herald in Glasgow, Scotland, will come straight to mind. It is Damien Love, but you knew this already. I did not.

Earlier today, the newspaper published Love’s television listings for the week just started, the week that will culminate at noon (EST) on Friday, January 20, with the debut of a new reality show in the United States: the next presidential administration.

Damien Love wrote this brilliant description (as seen above):
Read More

Marist and the Trump Inaugural Parade

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Of course there are rival online petitions: there ought to be. In an ideal world, in a nation that celebrates free speech, there ought to be petitions to reflect each viewpoint.

Two petitions were started on Change.org recently in response to the news that my alma mater’s marching band accepted an invitation to march in the inaugural parade in Washington, DC, next week. It is always good to see one’s alma mater in the news, especially when one’s school is not a well-known one. A Marist College graduate (Class of 1990), I usually see my school’s red and white logo and motto (Orare et laborare: “to work is to pray”) only when I look for it online or whenever the alumnae fundraising committee finds my new mailing address. (Every time.)
Read More