Welcome to Ishmael’s Legacy
The Art of The Lie
My dad has always been the master of telling tall tales with a straight face. You just never quite know if he’s telling the truth or pulling your leg, and it filled my childhood with laughter while teaching me not to take life too seriously. I remember one time my nephew Justin was visiting my…
Are We Too Soft for Adjectives?
When I was a kid my dad owned a chain of children’s bookstores in the Pacific Northwest’s Willamette Valley. When I was out of school my days were often taken up with opening boxes of new books, pricing them and then…. reading them! I was in heaven! This part may come as a shock, but…
In Pursuit of Jesus
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” — 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, like many children I spent Sunday mornings in Sunday school. We were taught amazing stories about…
US House: Theater of the Absurd
A common saying in modern discourse is “may you live in interesting times,” and while this sounds fairly straightforward, it is actually derived from a Chinese curse. After four years of enduring Donald Trump in the White House, a prolonged battle with COVID-19 and the resulting economic upheaval and the politicization of seemingly everything, it…
When Santa Rides Away
Dedicated to Santa Bob McMasters – the REAL Santa Everyone knows the story of Santa Claus, the North Pole, the elves, the reindeer, chimneys and enchanted toy deliveries to all the good little boys and girls on Christmas Eve. Sometime in the middle of the night that bridges Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Santa finishes…
It’s Time to Talk About Lucasfilm
No. No. No. No! No! NOOOO!!!! Ok, I had to get that out of my system. There have been a number of disturbing rumors coming out from people who claim to have seen the screenings of Indiana Jones 5 and they tell the tale of a company that has not learned its lesson. Ever since…
Decoding Talking Points: Paul Whelan
A week ago I had never heard of Paul Whelan, and it’s extremely likely you hadn’t either. Last week, however, when it was announced that the Biden Administration had negotiated for the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner, the right-wing entertainment machine went into full spin cycle. A friend of mine even took to social…
Generation P(laylist)
I vividly remember my introduction to 80’s rock and roll. I was sitting in a movie theater watching Back to the Future for the first time and all of a sudden “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News was blasting at me in surround sound. I turned to my friend and asked…
The Storm on the Horizon
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair. Imagine, if you will, an alcoholic who decides to start attending Alcoholic Anonymous to fight the deadly disease of alcoholism. The alcoholic knows drinking is unsustainable, wreaks havoc on all of the people involved…
America’s (Pretend) Energy Crisis
It’s that time of year again. Well, actually we’ve reached a point where this time of year gets dragged out for months and we’re all suffering from nearly debilitating election fatigue. I hate to even turn on the news because they will inevitably ignore the many real newsworthy stories in favor of predicting results, discussing…
The People of the Rock
This was inspired by an exchange with John Pavlovitz Once upon a time there was a community called Waterica which was comprised completely of water. Everywhere you looked, there was nothing but beautiful, blue waves. Of course, beautiful water can also be dangerous, because just like you and me, the people of Waterica could only…
Why Children Need Magic
Full disclosure, I had no intention of being a parent. My sisters have wonderful kids, I visited extremely often, made a point of spending lots of quality time with them, and I found that very satisfying. Besides, I had a loving and devoted Beagle at home. Then, just before my 40th birthday, my daughter came…
An Open Letter to Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Dear Senator Cruz: Yes, it’s me, the guy who keeps calling your office and leaving messages requesting your plan on the issues you complain about the most. Right, the guy who constantly challenges you on Twitter and offers to help you come up with proactive solutions to the problems facing us here in Texas. As…
Teaching: A Different Perspective
A quick scan of the daily news these days will typically feature two things about teaching. First, there are teacher shortages across America as educators seem to be abandoning the field like investors dropping virtual currency. Second, you’ll inevitably find mea culpas from teachers who have recently quit talking about the mounting and daunting challenges…
Taking A Walk
I knew the moment I saw them that they were going to be talkers. As I rounded the corner, my in-laws’ dog Kody working to keep pace, I went ahead and pulled one of my earbuds out of my ear so that I could return the pleasantries of the day. Sure enough, when they saw…
The Final Curtain Call
I wasn’t supposed to be in the show at all. I was supposed to be on summer vacation. My daughter auditioned for two roles in the musical “Matilda,” got one of the roles she auditioned for, and my involvement was limited to dropping her off and picking her up. Given that the greatest joy about…
Beating Inflation 101
I have a very good friend who drives a ridiculous pick-up truck. He’s over 30, yet tricks this thing out like he’s a teenager whose dad is Jeff Bezos and he has unlimited money to burn. It has an embarrassingly loud engine, huge wheels, and performs like a dragster as he makes his way down…
The Truth About Abortion
Right now the story dominating headlines is, of course, the leaked Supreme Court memo indicating that come June, Roe vs. Wade will no longer be the law of the land. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Senate Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell blocked President Barack Obama from appointing centrist Merrick Garland to the…
Cell Phone Zombies?
When I was a kid my parents had some fairly strict guidelines for me as far as how much time I could spend staring at a screen. For a lot of my childhood there were no video games and smart phones were decades away, so it was mostly about television. I was allowed to watch…
Thoughts On Resurrection
As my regular readers know, I am not the kind of person who believes things just because a bunch of other people believe them. I ask questions, I read exhaustively and study everything I can find to study and then come to my own conclusion. Even as a kid, the idea that a guy was…
America 2.0 – Reimagining Public Education
It seems like every week or so I’m being sent another article about another teacher who has quit the profession who details the many reasons for the decision. The stories are all essentially the same, and as I read them I find myself nodding along with them, laughing at times, at other times throwing my…
America 2.0 – Reimagining Democracy
If you’re familiar with the Old Testament, you’ve at least been exposed to the Book of Exodus, in which Moses led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt and into what they believed to be the promised land. The way of life that had evolved for the Israelites in Egypt worked quite well for their…
The Truth About Gas Prices
For as long as I can remember I have had insatiable curiosity. When I don’t understand something I seek as many sources of information as I can find in my quest for understanding. Thankfully, and not coincidentally, my family has always been a great starting point. During the COVID-19 pandemic it was extremely helpful to…
Racism and America’s Classrooms
It seems like every time we turn around America is eating itself. In Tennessee people are burning Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen (books) at the stake because reading about them supposedly evokes The Devil (cue Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”). In cities across The South former President Donald Trump is pretending he’s still President and…
What Biden Should Admit About COVID-19
Some things really just shouldn’t be political. I understand that the American culture has become all about marketing, attention keeping and preaching to the choir, but when it comes to public health it seems like we should call a timeout. We really need our public health officials to just level with us about the latest…
Off White and the Seven Ummmm…
I had a bad feeling about this from very early on. The tipping point for me when it came to subscribing to Disney+ was the arrival of Lucasfilms’ “The Mandalorian,” but I was also looking forward to seeing the (sort of) live action version of “Lady and the Tramp.” The latter was one of my…
The Myth of “Free” Money
My brother-in-law has made a habit of living with us for much of the last five years. I really don’t mind so much, as we have the room and he’s very quiet and respectful of our space. He’s been fighting cancer off and on, winning for the most part, and it’s good for him to…
The Real Magic of Harry Potter
“Happiness can be found in even the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light.” – Albus Dumbledore I will never forget the first time I encountered a lifechanging iteration of the literary template of The Hero’s Journey, or the monomyth in collegiate parlance. It was 1977, I was about to…
A New Christmas Story
I recently broke down and added Paramount+ to the array of streaming services we have in our household. You see, I watched as one by one the Star Trek entities beamed up from Netflix to their new mothership and we finally hit critical mass. I mean, I have all the classic series on DVD, but…
Brief But Spectacular: Santa Claus
Originally published December, 2021 My daughter Riley is 10 years old and she still believes in Santa Claus. Some people look at me funny when I say that, but that’s because they haven’t met the REAL Santa Claus. Riley has. In fact, she has been visiting the real Santa every year since she was a…
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Ishmael's Legacy 