Dennis E. Powell's View from Mudsock Heights

Dennis E. Powell is crackpot-at-large at Open for Business. Powell was a reporter in New York and elsewhere before moving to Ohio, where he has (mostly) recovered. You can reach him at dep@drippingwithirony.com.

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Let's Pick a Time, Then Keep It

By Dennis E. Powell | Oct 20, 2021 at 7:14 PM
Remind me: Why do we arbitrarily change the time twice a year? There must be a very important reason, because it’s a deadly thing to do. But that reason is not apparent, and I more and more think that it doesn’t exist at all.

Time for a Digital Declaration of Independence

By Dennis E. Powell | Oct 13, 2021 at 11:50 AM

Facebook was down for several hours last week. Wise people considered the incident “a good start.” This came after testimony before a Congressional committee in which Facebook was shown to be engaged in the promotion of things harmful to children in order to make a buck.

Print is Going, But I'm Not

By Dennis E. Powell | Oct 06, 2021 at 11:41 AM

With this column, “The View From Mudsock Heights” enters its sixteenth year. It began 15 years ago and and I’ve not missed a week since.

It's Fun When the Barnstormers Come Round

By Dennis E. Powell | Sep 29, 2021 at 10:34 PM

The time was shortly after World War I. The place, almost anywhere that there was an area long enough and flat enough. The sound was the coughing and sputtering of those early engines at the front of any of a variety of war-surplus airplanes. The few surviving military aviators and others who sought adventure had been able to purchase the planes, Curtiss Jenny trainers and the like, and they had set off to find their fortunes.

Fast or Slow, Time Will Flow -- Even Now

By Dennis E. Powell | Sep 22, 2021 at 11:47 AM

Today is the first day of autumn. The new season begins at 3:20 p.m. Eastern time, so it’s really the first part-day of autumn. It is not by design that I’ve gone on a bit recently about the passage of time and our perception thereof. It just seems to have inserted itself into a lot of recent (how do we even define “recent”?) events.

Missed Discussions of Vitamin D, Virus Origins, and Scandals

By Dennis E. Powell | Sep 15, 2021 at 12:41 PM

Marjorie Thompson died seven years ago today. If you did not know her, that is your loss. She was the most remarkable person I’ve ever known in a life fortunate to have included many remarkable people. She was also the best and closest friend I’ve had in this life.

Time and the Towers, and the Nowhere to Which They Led

By Dennis E. Powell | Sep 08, 2021 at 10:38 PM

Time is a funny thing. Well, no, time is time. Our perception of it is where things go haywire. We’re not very well equipped to comprehend the passage of time or its implications.

'Good Enough' is Usually Both Good and Enough

By Dennis E. Powell | Sep 01, 2021 at 11:00 AM

A noticeable thunderstorm toddled through here a little after noon on Sunday. Nothing surprising there, nor in it taking the power out for most of the rest of the day.

Up Kabul Creek Without a Passport

By Dennis E. Powell | Aug 25, 2021 at 12:16 PM

In a lot of places, your papers are everything. Which is why it was especially alarming to hear that Joe’s new best friends, the Taliban, have been seizing the passports of American citizens in Afghanistan. In the Mideast, as in some other parts of the world, your passport is your identity. Without it, you are at the mercy of those who might not have your best interests at heart. Seizure of your passport leaves you naked and vulnerable. Your comings and goings are now no longer your decision.

When All is Bleak, Look to the Turtle

By Dennis E. Powell | Aug 18, 2021 at 9:12 PM

What is there to say? Our country is governed by an ice-cream enthusiast who has combined the policies of Jimmy Carter with the presentation of Gerald Ford (if Ford had suffered rabies) along with his own diminished capacity — and he didn’t have that much capacity to begin with. In his speech Monday he sounded like that angry doddering guy on the front porch of the rest home who causes visitors to enter through the back door instead.

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