Posts by Terry Bacon
Announcing a New Suspense Thriller from Terry R. Bacon: Storm Warning
I am excited to announce the publication of my novel, Storm Warning, which is now available at Amazon.com and other online book retailers. Storm Warning is the story of a blues saxophone player, Sonny Marshall, who is drawn into the mystery of a 5-year-old girl who vanished seven years ago in Sacramento and may have…
Read MoreDebra Parmenter’s Northern Lights
Last February, we traveled to Churchill, Canada, to see the northern lights. Churchill is a very small town on the edge of Hudson Bay in northern Manitoba. It lies directly beneath the polar vortex, which is the epicenter of northern lights activity where particles from the sun excite atoms in our atmosphere and create glowing…
Read MoreFlying
For most of us, flying over forested cliffs and swooping over the shore is deeply mesmerizing. I could watch this video all day, imagining the sights, sounds, and smells of the ocean and the shore, feeling the air whipping past and the warmth of the sun on my skin. The freedom and exhilaration of flight is something we dream of when we see an eagle or an osprey soaring over a valley. Alas, we are Earthbound and too heavy to take flight, but we can still imagine.
Video credit: mixkit-flying-by-drone-over-a-sunny-peninsula-44403-medium
Read MoreThree Jazz Standards–and a Smooth Finish
Jazz is an American art form that has influenced music worldwide for over a century. Jazz has its roots in Western musical structure and African rhythms, particularly in the “call and response” musical form born in the Mississippi Delta. As jazz has evolved, it is characterized by swing tempos, blues notes, complex chord progressions, polyrhythms, and, most importantly, improvisation.
Read MoreA Planet Blacker Than Coal
Imagine a planet so black that it would appear to be a hole in the sky. If you were approaching TRes-2b in a spaceship, you would see nothing until you were able to discern faint red cracks in the eerie deep black of a hot gas ball one-and-a-half times the size of Jupiter. If you were foolish to fly closer still, you would see that those red cracks are glowing and undulating as they traverse the planet. In an atmosphere as hot as lava, storms whip across this planet at unimaginable speeds.
Read MoreDon’t Be Afraid to Use the “F” Word
No, I don’t mean that F word. No one these days seems afraid to use it. I mean this F word: fascism. We have heard this word more often lately, mostly to describe the current state of the Republican Party after and under Donald Trump. Is it accurate to describe Republicans like Trump, Boebert, Greene, Hawley, Cotton, Lee, and others as fascists?
Read MoreThe Fifth Law of Influence
The fifth law of influence is that ethical influence is consensual and often bilateral. Every act of influence is an attempt to persuade another to agree with you or go along with what you want. But some influencers don’t want to take “no” for an answer, so they resort to various forms of threats, intimidation, or manipulation to impose their will on others. By anyone’s definition of right and wrong, these means of influence are unethical.
Read MoreThe Fourth Law of Influence
The fourth law of influence is that influence is cultural. To influence cross-culturally you need to be adept at understanding and adapting to all kinds of cultural differences.
Read MoreReflections on the Premature Death of Ellika Larsdotter
Ellika Larsdotter was born on April 25, 1703 in Nysund, Sweden, a small farming community. Most of the details of her life have been lost to history, but it is likely she lived all of her life in Nysund. If she travelled at all, it would probably have been within Orebro, the county where Nysund…
Read MoreThe Most Popular Desserts in America
What’s for dessert? Fall is here, and we’re curious about the most popular desserts in America as well as the best desserts for fall. Read on.
Read MoreBanned Books and Movies
Censors, many government-appointed and others elected to school and library boards have long found reasons to ban certain books or films because of their themes, their portrayal of people, or language or because they somehow offend the political or religious sensibilities of the censors.
Read MoreSocial Media by the Numbers
In two decades, social media has become a mainstream global phenomenon. How many people use social media? What are the most popular platforms? How much time everyday do people spend on social media?
Read MoreAmerica’s Most Vexing Issue
With its recent ruling on abortion, our conservatively stacked Supreme Court has poured gasoline on the flames of a culture war that began with Roe v. Wade and escalated after Donald Trump became president. Like many people who try to view the question of abortion with a clear lens, one not distorted by religious dogma or the liberal fervor of women’s rights advocates, I feel caught in the great divide between the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the debate.
Read MoreDurango PlayFest’s 4th Exciting Season
Durango PlayFest is a week-long, annual play development festival where both established and up-and-coming playwrights workshop new plays with seasoned directors and actors before presenting staged readings to see how live audiences react to their plays. This year we were privileged to see plays by Richard Dresser, Dan Lauria, Lia Romeo, and Blossom Johnson. The…
Read MoreMy Evil Washing Machine
I noticed something disconcerting several months ago after doing my wash and putting my wet underwear in the dryer. Nearly every pair of underwear was turned inside out when I removed them from the dryer. I wasn’t counting how many were turned inside out; I just became aware that most were not right-side out, as I would have swore they were before I washed them.
Read MoreImages from the Webb: The Cartwheel Galaxy
The James Webb Space Telescope is a significant advance in our ability to discern details about the universe that even the Hubble Telescope was unable to render. The Webb, which is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, records light in the infrared part of the spectrum, so it…
Read MoreThis is a painting of a girl under a trellis in a garden. In whose style is this painting done?
This painting is intended to show the girl under a trellis in a garden in a painting done in the style of Edward Manet, the French Impressionist. So if you chose No. 7, you chose correctly. If you think the painting better resembles the work of another artist on the list, you could be right,…
Read MoreCan Science Be Trusted?
Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic philosopher and the last of Rome’s Five Good Emperors. He reigned from 161 to 180 and is known for his Meditations, a philosophical treatise in which he wrote, “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” Science as we know…
Read MoreUpdate: On the Inevitability of Social Liberalism
The progress toward social liberalism may have been impeded since Trump took office, but it is inevitable, despite those who oppose it. Had Rush Limbaugh had been on the radio in 1918, we can imagine him loudly denouncing the women’s suffrage movement. “Women should not be allowed to vote,” he might have argued, “because their role is in the home. The fairer sex is concerned with children and local issues. They don’t understand the loftier matters of state, government, war, or politics, nor should we ask them to.” He would have been joined in his opposition by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Laura Ingraham, and other firebrand conservatives who would use their media platforms to impede social progress.
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