Silver Vox

09/02/2024

How can we fight racism and intolerance and promote diversity…
When we can’t even let a friend express an opposing view without calling them stupid and unfriending them?

08/23/2024

“I can resist anything…
Except temptation.”

Oscar Wilde

08/21/2024

No matter where your politics may lie, you have to see the irony of Bernie Sanders railing against billionaires during his speech at the DNC... and then introducing Illinois's Governor JB Pritzer... who is, in fact, a billionaire... A billionaire who told the people of Illinois to stay home and not travel out of state during Covid... and then flew to Florida.

Bernie, I think your timing might have been a little off.

08/16/2024

"Bye, Bye, American Pie" took on new meaning on this day in 1977. There are three things that happened in my younger years that I think defined something about us... JFK being assassinated, the moon landing, and Elvis dying. I wasn't even his biggest fan, but the news shocked me... and I think I finally understood how some people a little older than I felt when James Dean died. I waited for Don McClean to update his song... but he never did. Maybe he was afraid if he did Elvis would truly be dead.

08/07/2024

“We’re getting the language into its final shape — the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.”

George Orwell, 1984
Published in 1949

07/29/2024

Did you hear about the wizard who turned himself into a pair of glasses?... Made a spectacle of himself.

07/12/2024

When real life imitates art...

07/04/2024

06/17/2024

I returned home yesterday after my annual trek to Bentonville, Arkansas, for the Bentonville Film Festival. I used to post photos of the celebrities I would see at the event, but since the Covid shut down I think it's taken them some time to get back to level they were prior. It is still a very interesting event filled with films I probably wouldn't watch otherwise, but always walk away with a new take on a subject and more appreciation for the women and minorities who have directed and starred in these films. This was the 10th annual festival, and I do believe they are on track to one day being numbered with Cannes, Tribeca, and Sundance as film festivals worthy of avid film fans.

05/23/2024

I can’t remember the last time I forgot something.

05/21/2024

When you and I disagree, you can win me, not with your rage... but with your ideas.

05/15/2024

Last year our Governor, J. B. Pritzker, submitted a budget to the lawmakers he called, “a balanced budget.” One little thing... It included a one billion dollar tax increase. That’s like me telling my wife, “I’ve balanced our budget for the upcoming year. All we have to do is increase our credit card debt by $100,000 and have someone else pay the bills.”

Well, the lawmakers have told our revered Governor an increase in taxes by that much isn’t going to fly, which is surprising as the majority of them are in the same party as Governor Pritzker. But kudos to them regardless. In response they are suggesting eight hundred million in cuts. When reporters confronted the Governor with the notion that a billion dollar increase in taxes was not wise or popular he acknowledged he’ll probably have to make the cuts, but he also, as he always does, responded by indicating those who oppose the increase don’t know how government works. In other words, “I’m smarter than the rest of you... the lawmakers, the reporters, and the entire state of Illinois.” (I’ve paraphrased this quote.)

Governor, you’re just too smart for our state. Maybe we should vote you out in 2026.