 By Samir Shukla
Hold on to your hats. This turbulence-fueled flight is about to land. The time is drawing near to employ the landing gears and attempt a smooth landing. A diverse set of Americans are sitting close to each other on this packed flight called democracy. The political conventions are over. The presidential and vice-presidential debates have been tagged and sold. It’s now time for the voters to disembark this disorienting ride and make a stand.  By Samir Shukla
There’s much chit chat around the country about oldness. The presidential election is a few months away and now we’ve got a couple of, ahem, oldies essentially set as the candidates. Barring any unforeseen calamities before election day, they are going to duke it out for the big prize. A grudge rematch awaits the American voter. A rerun of oldie but not necessarily goldie will take place during the incoming chill of early November.  By Samir Shukla
The summer between the final year of high school and beginning of college flashed by like a speeding 1972 Chevy Nova. A couple of days after I moved into the dorm to embark on college life, in the fall of 1981, music was flowing out of the open door in a room down the hallway. There was also the pungent aroma of weed flowing into the common area, though most of it wafted out the open windows in that room.  By Samir Shukla
Our interactions, social and, especially, political, seem to have become a giant compost pile, something we must constantly stir and layer properly, to keep it from stinking and sinking further into divisiveness and atrophy. We toss food scraps and leftovers into compost bins and piles, so after a while some rich organic material will result and can be used to help bring nutrients back into scarred lands on Earth.  By Samir Shukla
Humans have an instinctive need to mark the passage of time, where our calendars stabilize and tabulate our lives, give a sense of things that need to be done. Schedules, celebrations, disappointments, memories good and bad, beginnings and ends, among myriad other things, are tagged to specific days and years, even exact moments of days. We need these time markers, lest we amble through the forests and deserts of life in a blend of days and nights intermingled without any sense of their purpose. |
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