The View from Mudsock Heights: When the Hoped-For Disaster Fails to Strike, Television News is Bared

By Dennis E. Powell | Mar 10, 2010 at 23:46:0

You’ve probably seen it: A movie or television drama that depicts news coverage of some anticipated disaster. It might be an alien invasion, or a nuclear attack, a volcano, an approaching asteroid, or — a tsunami.

The View from Mudsock Heights: A Decent Camera is Eclipsed by the Great Camera It Might Have Been

By Dennis E. Powell | Mar 1, 2010 at 1:24:41

Imagine a new Ferrari. The specs are incredible: great steering and suspension, 0-60 in around four seconds, a top speed exceeding anything you would ever hope for on a public road. On paper, the perfect machine.

The View from Mudsock Heights: the Ruse Has Gone on Long Enough, and Now I Must Confess My Addiction

By Dennis E. Powell | Feb 19, 2010 at 23:57:21

We live in an age of confession. I don’t mean so much the heartfelt admission to ourselves and our Creator of our manifold sins and wickedness as a loud and public proclamation of some character flaw that henceforth is expected to excuse unsatisfactory behavior.

The View From Mudsock Heights: Accentuating the Negative(s) Brings Back Amazing Memories

By Dennis E. Powell | Feb 10, 2010 at 17:45:47

One of the best delights of the newspaper business is its unpredictability. Events, often unforeseen, dictate the course of the day. This can be exciting. Or, sometimes, it can be mortifying.

The View from Mudsock Heights: A Tiny Plastic Rectangle Reminds Me What Terrible Futurists We Are

By Dennis E. Powell | Feb 2, 2010 at 0:50:59

For some reason, talk turned to the 1964 New York World’s Fair. You may remember the remnants of that event, especially if you saw the movie, “Men In Black.” The centerpiece of the fair was a huge, skeletonized globe, called the “Unisphere,” and there were two tall, modern-looking observatory towers that in the movie were actually captured flying saucers. My favorite line of the movie has to do with the fair having disguised an alien invasion: “Why else would they hold it in Queens?”

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Haitian Earthquake Brings Thoughts of Midwestern History

By Dennis E. Powell | Jan 21, 2010 at 17:13:48

The sheer vastness of the devastation in Haiti, a nation that was not a garden spot to begin with, is such that it is almost impossible to grasp. It appears that at least as many people as populate all of my county — every man, woman, child, and out-of-town college student — were killed. The mind lacks perspective for such things, even as a phrase like “a trillion dollars” is so big as to be meaningless.

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Joys of Heating the Whole House With a Woodstove

By Dennis E. Powell | Jan 12, 2010 at 17:3:44

Here we are, a third of the way through January and well into very cold weather, and I still haven’t fired up the furnace this winter. I don’t know if I will.

The View from Mudsock Heights: What Do We Do About the Asteroid Problem?

By Dennis E. Powell | Jan 7, 2010 at 19:52:21

The article caught my attention — how could it not?

It seems that the Russians are going to get busy and, if they work hard and fast, they will push an asteroid away from Earth before it comes close — maybe too close — in 2032.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Nothing So Sweetens Christmas Memories as the Passage of Time

By Dennis E. Powell | Dec 22, 2009 at 23:47:18

When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol In Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (the full title) in 1843, he chose to make the least frightening of his apparitions the Ghost of Christmas Past. That makes sense. Christmas memories tend toward the sweet.

The View from Mudsock Heights: To Enjoy Music, We Need to be Able to Escape Music

By Dennis E. Powell | Dec 17, 2009 at 22:11:9

The assault on, with, and by music continues, and grows. I love music, but I don’t know how long I can hold out, in a world in which escaping from music has become increasingly difficult.