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.

04/10/2024

I managed to observe one of the most stunning solar events of my life in Paducah, Kentucky, from a church parking lot. I don't know if I'll be around in 2044 for the next one, but I'm glad I won't have to imagine what 2024 was like based on someone else's photos... or eyes.

03/30/2024

"Violence does not spring from a vacuum. It's born out of other men's violence. It gets nurtured and it grows in a soil of prejudice and of hate and of bigotry." ~Rod Serling

03/16/2024

The photo on the left is Irene Ryan at a younger age than what most of us remember. She was Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies. The woman on the right is Irene Hervey, an actor in her own right. They are NOT the same woman.

For at least five years now social media has been rife with photos of Irene Hervey claiming it to be Irene Ryan, even though you can clearly see the signature on her photo. This may not seem like a big deal, but this is systematic of the errors, falsehoods, and out in out lies present on the Internet. Someone posted it, (I first saw it on Pinterest five years ago,) did not even read the signature or check his or her facts, and voila! social media has made it so... even though it's wrong. And while dozens, maybe hundreds of commenters have posted, "That's not Irene Ryan," over the course of the last five years, or more, I saw it posted again yesterday. On another site that posted the actual photo on the left of Irene Ryan... correctly... someone in the comments added Irene Hervey's photo, complete with signature, and said, "Here's another photo of Irene Ryan."

Bottom line: If you are getting all your facts from X, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Pinterest, I'm willing to bet confusing who played Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies is the least of your problems... Crack a real book now and then.

01/31/2024

People have an unusual habit of thinking either their own or someone else’s middle name is weird.

“What’s your middle name?”

“Martin.”

Laughing. “Martin? That’s stupid.” So says an old friend, Marty Johnson.

What’s even stranger is when someone has a middle name no normal human being would give as a first name. Aloisious or Tiberius or Ferdinand… no offense if anyone has one of those middle names. I mean, it’s like we are purposely preparing our kids to become assassins.

“The attempt on the President’s life was committed by Martin Aloisious Johnson. Johnson is an ex-Marine who was discharged after an incident where some members of his squad made fun of his middle name.”

01/26/2024

Once upon a time... at Al Capone's secret vault...

01/25/2024

If you assume everything negative said about people you oppose is true, and everything negative said about people you support is a lie, your vision might be biased.

01/20/2024

The temperature is Zero… Zero… Nothing… How can that be? It’s Nothing outside? There is no quantity of temperature out? The only thing I can compare it to is money. If you have zero dollars you can’t do anything… That about sums up what I will be doing outside today… Zero.

01/19/2024

Remember when people became famous for their accomplishments and not just for being famous?

01/12/2024

Published 75 years ago...

01/08/2024

Burt Mustin started acting at the age of 67 when director William Wyler cast him in a minor role in the 1951 film Detective Story, starring Kirk Douglas. After he continued working in film and television from the 1950s to the 1970s in over 200 roles, from Leave it to Beaver to Dick Van D**e and Dragnet where he played a senior citizen who proved to be a rather clever thief. Besides two smaller roles in Arthur Hailey’s The Moneychangers and the film Baker’s Hawk, both in 1976, his last major role was a recurring part as Arthur Lanson on the CBS sitcom Phyllis, appearing on the show until shortly before his death on January 28, 1977, at the age of 92.

Burt had the distinction of getting the longest laugh on The Tonight Show hosted by Johnny Carson when he told a joke and the audience laughed for a solid minute.

If you think it's too late to make something of yourself because of your age, remember Burt.

01/05/2024

Thought for today...

Sometimes millions, billions, and trillions don’t register on us in terms of money as being very different. So think of it this way. A million seconds is almost 12 days. A billion seconds is nearly 32 years. And a trillion seconds is just short of 32,000 years. Think about that as you do your financial planning... or think our national debt is just another number.

01/01/2024

A year ago 2023 seemed so fresh and clean…
Now people are brushing it off like it’s rotted and moldy….
May 2024 work out better for you.

01/01/2024

The date
for two more hours is
123123

12/13/2023

“People have to learn to disagree in this country…
And not hate for it…
The right response to speech you don’t like
Is more speech.”

Bill Maher

12/09/2023

Inclusion is not inclusion
when you only want to include
the people you like or want.

12/07/2023

“There are people out there who are deliberately waiting for the thrill of being offended.” —- John Cleese

12/05/2023

Occasionally the creative process requires a muse... a muse who is not crazy about it when I have to get up.