Blind Nebraska Woman Denied Postal Delivery

by Kevin Burton    Dialogue magazine for the blind used to have a column called Abapita. Abapita is an acronym standing for “ain’t blindness a pain in the anatomy.”    Sadly that magazine stopped publishing in 2019.  Also sadly, for the blind, the pain in the anatomy continues.    I get all manner of news …

Five More Unbelievable But True Stories

by Kevin Burton    The best fiction writers will have to go some to match these strange-but-true tales, compiled by Dictionary Scoop.    We told five of their stories yesterday. Today we mostly have tales of war, but not always the customary kind. We briefly dip into the cola wars, sort of: 6 The year …

Truth Proved Much Stranger Than Fiction

by Dictionary Scoop    They say truth is stranger than fiction, and some of these historical events are living proof.    Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride through history, where the strange and unexpected take center stage in the theater of reality.  1 The Great Emu War    Wars are typically waged between nations, but in 1932, …

Nebraska Town Divided Over Immigration

by Didi Martinez, Julia Ainsley and  Laura Strickler, NBC News FREMONT, Neb. — Big-city mayors may be complaining about the economic impact of an influx of migrants, but the residents of a small city near Omaha can’t decide how they feel.    Fremont, Nebraska, population 27,000, has three massive meat-processing plants. As young locals leave in …

Gerry Rafferty Was Born 77 Years Ago Today

by Kevin Burton    The headline to an article in The Independent called Gerry Rafferty a “bipolar alcoholic industry misfit.” His biographers including his daughter Martha dispute none of that.    The article was printed on the occasion of the 2021 release of “Rest In Blue” an album of Rafferty demos polished and completed by …

Cookies Crumble, But Our Love Marches On

by Kevin Burton    Late last month my wife Jeannette did something to jeopardize our marriage.    We were at Subway and I heard her say to the sandwich artist, “..and we want three chocolate chip cookies…”    Three chocolate chip cookies.    As you know, three is an uneven number. It’s quite a bit …

Brewing A Big Pot Of Knowledge About Tea

by Kevin Burton    Somebody, either me or my wife Jeannette, went a little crazy buying tea in a discount store some years ago.    Guess which one.    We had visited her parents in the county west of us. On the way home we stopped at one of those discount stores. I found tea …

My Cats Know My Voice (But Don’t Listen)

by Kevin Burton    Researchers found that cats can recognize their owners’ voices. Duh!    Why would you need a team of researchers to figure that out?    Call me when researchers have figured out how to get the cats to listen and obey. That will be news I can use.    “While dogs are …

Songwriting School, Class In Session

by Kevin Burton    International Songwriters Day was observed yesterday and I’m staying on that theme.     This post is a service to all you songwriters, or really any kind of writers, out there. But who am I kidding, it’s also to keep my head in the game and stoke those musical fires again.    …

Songwriters Day, A Musical Day Of Reckoning

by Kevin Burton    I grew up mostly at the school for the blind in Ohio. But I had (still have) some partial vision and I played a lot of sandlot baseball in my day.    The school used to hire recreation leaders to work with us restless kids. I think these were students from …