“Heavenly shades of night are falling, it’s twilight time.” So sang the Platters in 1958, and the lyrics were running, fresh, through my head, as I watched the Blackbelt Narcissist Finals between the ever-weakening president and his pet billionaire last…
Hubris: (noun) Excessive pride. In Greek tragedy, defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis. Please, the sooner the better. We can only hope. Of all the things I could use to illustrate the hubris of the current white house resident,…
I first began to be interested in the art of misdirection in college when my friends and I went to magic shows at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Each of the artists, whether at our tables, or in performance, used…
Millennia before Mark Twain (allegedly) wrote, “Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over,” life everywhere on Earth arranged its daily existence around a critical dependence on water. Nothing was more necessary for survival. 60-70% of the human body…
From the earliest accounts of battles in our ancient history, to reports pouring into our news feeds today, we have learned about the ways in which our children have been used as a shield in battle. Ancient armies forced children…
The current resident of the Oval Office has been honest with us in one way, at least. He has forthrightly revealed his dreams of planet-wide dominance. From posting a fake Time Magazine Man of the Year cover featuring himself, crowned…
Even before the latest oval office resident came on the scene, many in his party had campaigned, and won, not by promising to do better at governing, or by providing more services and protections to a majority of the people,…
I began a lifetime of reading science fiction books and magazines, like Amazing Stories, in the early fifties, when I was ten or eleven years old. All of the great authors: Heinlein, Bradbury, Jules Verne, HG Wells, Asimov, wrote short stories and…
It’s spring! And, since I suffer from that “ear worm” condition under which practically every sentence I say or write makes me think of a song, the first thing that “springs” to mind is the title song, Springtime For Hitler, from the…
Santa Monica Next is proud to be the online home of former State Senator and County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. You can sign-up to get her email delivered to your inbox directly by clicking here. In 1939, MGM released a movie,…
Santa Monica Next is proud to be the online home of former State Senator and County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. You can sign-up to get her email delivered to your inbox directly by clicking here. I love the law. I love…
March 27, 2025Quick NoteLast week’s email talked about my evolution into a person who thought of herself as the Catcher In The Rye. Coincidentally, it appears that both houses of the Texas legislature have introduced bills making it a crime…
Hello, all! Some folks seem to be reading these weekly postings on a substack not of my creation. The better way to get them as I send them is to join my email list. It’s only for Kool Happs, period.…
In the early 1950s, when many of us had yet to buy our first television set, Truth or Consequences was a popular TV game show, one of many quickly thrown together to fill the sudden gaping time demands of this…
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less…The question is, which is to be the master—that’s all.” With these words, written by Louis Carroll…
