Posted Saturday morning, July 21, 2018. Sign on the road leading into the Marian Shrine and Don Bosco Retreat Center. Stony Point, New York. Monday, July 16, 2018. In case you can’t read it off the photo, the sign says: Marian Shrine A Roman Catholic Center of Prayer and Pilgrimage Please respect this sacred environment for religious pilgrims & retreatants NO: Pets, inline skating, bicycles, recreational vehicles, unauthorized sports or picnics, radios, etc. THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY I see the point. No religious pilgrim travels a thousand miles or even one mile to be bowled over by an unleashed happy... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Wednesday, July 18, 2018. Posted Friday morning, July 20. “Isn’t that right, Vlad, old buddy?”: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at their press conference after the Helsinki summit, Monday, July 16, 2018. AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko via Newser. Here’s how I understand Trump and Putin. I’m not saying how it is with them, because like I would know. And I’m not suggesting it’s how you should understand it. Besides its being the case that I don’t know and have no way of knowing, it’s the case with everything---you probably know more than me. Even if you don’t,... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Monday afternoon, July 16, 2018. Posted Tuesday morning, July 17. Altar and sanctuary of Mary Help of Christians Chapel, Marian Shrine and Don Bosco Retreat Center, Stony Point, New York. Photo by Lance Mannion’s inner altar boy. July 16, 2018. Very near to the hospital is the Marian Shrine and Don Bosco Retreat Center. I pass it every day on my way to see Mrs M and every night on my way home. I’d been meaning to stop in. Mainly out of curiosity but I have to admit I’d been feeling pulled by my inner altar... Continue reading

Posted Monday morning, July 16, 2018. My Facebook “memories to look back on” today included this post from last summer that I thought was cute and funny at the time. It’s not so cute and funny to me anymore… July 16, 2017. Mrs M has been feeling poorly again. Thinking to cheer her up and earn some extra good husband points, I bought her some flowers when I was at the grocery store this morning. I put them in a vase and set them at her usual place at the kitchen table before calling to her to come have the... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Wednesday, July 4, 2018. Posted Monday, July 16, 2018. “The Battle of Concord: Engagement at North Bridge”. Essentially a wall-sized .gif based on a 1775 engraving by Amos Doolittle at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. Sorry I can’t show it to you inaction. The gun smoke rises from the muskets. The sky lights up with reflected musket fire. The soldiers on both sides march back and forth across the bridge. It’s really cool. Photo by Oliver Mannion. Taken December 27, 2017. From the Department of Ideas in Search of a Post: We’re always... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks Tuesday, July 3, 2018. Posted Monday, July 16. Photo of now former EPA Chief Scott Pruitt by Jonathan Ernst courtesy of Reuters via the Atlantic. From the Department of Ideas in Search of a Post: There’s not much that separates Main Street from Wall Street except the limits of criminal opportunity. Who’s the more American type? The Wall Street bankster or hedge fund manager making millions off his clients’ losses or the guy in the suit from Men’s Warehouse on the phone at his rented desk in the office park boiler room? Scott Pruitt is an... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks and adapted from the Twitter feed, Sunday morning, July 8, 2018. Posted Sunday morning, July 15. As far as I’m concerned, there is only one essential Doctor and that’s the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, and all the other Doctors are various incarnations of him. There is no essential President. Each one has been essentially himself, and that’s especially true of the current one. The President isn’t a separate entity from the person who holds the office. He isn’t like the Doctor. It isn’t the case that with every regeneration he gets a new body but remains... Continue reading

Posted Saturday night, July 14, 2018. Mrs M didn't need my company today. She had visitors all day. Her aunt and uncle stopped by in the morning and her mother and brother and sister in law came in the afternoon and stayed until closing time. So I thought I'd take advantage and stay home, relax a bit, and start getting the house in shape for her homecoming Thursday. Of course I didn't relax and the house is still a disaster. I spent the day feeling guilty and fighting the urge to get in the car and rush down there. Oliver... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks Thursday night, July 12. Posted Saturday night, July 14. “Come on. Stop talking nonsense and lock up." "I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe," the older waiter said. "With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night." "I want to go home and into bed." "We are of two different kinds," the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. "It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each... Continue reading

Coffee bar, 7Eleven, West Haverstraw, New York. Tonight, around twenty after nine. Thursday, July 12, 2018. No, I'm not having decaf! What do you take me for? An amateur? Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks and adapted from the Facebook feed, Sunday afternoon, June 24. Posted Saturday morning, July 14. This is the Palisades JCC Jazz Ensemble, out of the Jewish Community Center of Palisades, New Jersey. That’s Steve on flute, Paul on bass, and Barbara on piano. I didn’t get their last names when Mrs M and I went up to talk with them after the show. Muffed it there. Barbara was the front man. For this gig. Other gigs, they have other front men, playing other instruments. They have other members too. Some playing these instruments while Steve, Paul,... Continue reading

Posted Friday morning, July 13, 2018. A law enforcement officer who thinks the criminal he’s investigating is pond scum? That’s never happened! FBI Agent Pete Strzok prepares to testify Thursday to a House hearing on whether the FBI set out to scuttle Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy by not revealing that the Russians were helping him win the election. Photo via the Hill. These hearings are an act of crass and cynical political expediency. Like you need me to tell you that. You’ll never get Congressional Republicans to admit it, for obvious reasons, but one of them is that Republicans don’t... Continue reading

Service station. West Haverstraw, New York. Thursday night around 9. July 12, 2018. Just happened to stop here for gas. It’s the station closest to the hospital I’ve found. It cheered me up to see that the bays were open and there was work being done. it struck me as if I’d driven back in time into Norman Rockwell’s America. It’s probably pure nostalgia on my part, but I think there should be more places like this open on summer nights. I’m not sure how the mechanics and technicians would feel about it. I imagine their opinions would be more... Continue reading

Updated Friday morning, July 13, 2018. New posts below, but before scrolling down please read... Dear fans and friends of Mrs M.... THANK YOU! Thanks to your generosity, Mrs M will be coming home to an air conditioned and lighted house. And that's the good news... She's coming home! A week from yesterday, Thursday the 19th. Her recovery and therapy will continue at home and on an outpatient basis for several months, but she'll be off the Magic Mountain at last. So thank you again for the help with the electric bill. You gave us more than we needed to... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Saturday night, June 30, 2018. Posted Sunday morning, July 8. Soldiers running to board helicopters near Chi Chu in Vietnam, 1966. Photo courtesy of the National Archives via Wikimedia. Watching television can be good for you. Maybe. If you're recovering from brain surgery like Mrs M and have her memory and attention problems. Depends on what you watch. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's documentary on the War in Vietnam, which I just discovered is now on Netflix and which Mrs M and I started watching tonight, appears, in my rankly amateur and wholly ignorant medical opinion,... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Saturday night, June 30, 2018. Posted Sunday morning, July 8, 2018. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, probably talking and thinking in numbers, as was his studiously cultivated habit, at a press conference in February of 1965, explaining the latest escalation of America’s war effort in Vietnam. Photo from the National Archives via the Washington Post. In case, like Mrs M, you’ve grown a little fuzzy about who Robert McNamera, JFK’s and then LBJ’s first Secretary of Defense, was and what he was like, Max Boot sums him up neatly in “The Road Not Taken”, his excellent book... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Saturday evening, June 30, 2018. Posted Friday afternoon, July 6. “Do you want to read about Kanye?” Photo of pages from the New York Times featuring an article about Kanye West Mrs M seemed to think it was imperative for me to read. The question is, did she read it herself? Mrs M has been demonstrating heroic levels of patience, resilience, determination, and fortitude over the course of her rehab and recovery. If you know Mrs M, you know the resilience, determination, and fortitude are her being her. The patience might come as a surprise. There’s... Continue reading

Saturday. 10:43 a.m. 81 degrees. Sky bright blue, air still clear and fresh. Deep green shadows on the front and back lawns and the face of the house. A good morning to putter about outside. Hot as it already is---81 and the heat's rising---I want to stay here and help the Mannion men with the yard work. But sanity and priority prevail and I'm off to the hospital where I'm needed for other things beside mowing the lawn. Good thing too. The lawn there is huge! Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Thursday afternoon, June 14, 2018. Posted Monday morning, July 2. The bird on the get well card to Mrs M in front is a Western Tanager. I know that because I looked it up. I’ve never seen one. They and I have have never crossed paths in their natural habitat. They’re called Western Tanagers for a good reason. Several species of Tanagers call North America home. Western Tanagers in the west, Hepatic Tanagers in the more southerly parts of the Southwest, and, here in the east, Summer Tanagers and Scarlet Tanagers. I’ve seen very few Summer... Continue reading

Updated, Updated Sunday morning, July 8, 2018. New posts below, but before scrolling down please read... Here's Mrs M on the patio of the rehab hospital looking proud of the rakish angle with which she's wearing her cap. She also justly proud of the progress she's been making in her recovery. I owe you a full medical report but for now: she's doing well, definitely on the mend, but it's been little by little, day by day, and she's far from where she needs to be. She's still very weak, she still spends most of her day in her wheelchair,... Continue reading

Posted Saturday, June 30, 2018. Our Mr President Trump introducing “his” last pick for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, with Mrs Gorsuch. January 30, 2017. Screenshot from White House video. Really. The political media needs to cut this out. Covering Trump as if there’s serious presidenting going on. I know I’m repeating myself. But the media needs to stop it. Liberal Twitter too. Trump isn’t going to pick the next Supreme Court Justice. He’s just going to announce the name of the one who’s already been picked for him. He’ll announce it and take credit as if it’s his choice,... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Tuesday, June 12, 2018. Posted Friday morning, June 29. You say that like it’s a good thing… As far as I’m concerned, every President since has just been holding Washington’s coat: “Scene at the Signing of the Constitution. Howard Chandler Christy. 1940. U.S. House of Representatives via Wikipedia. Overheard another patient here and her daughter talking politics a little while ago. The patient is a woman well into what looks like a vigorous and cheerful old age, although she can’t be that vigorous at the moment since she’s here but it looks like she’s on her... Continue reading

Posted Tuesday morning, June 26, 2018. My favorite Cape Cod flowers are the day lilies. Mrs M’s are the hydrangeas. Day lilies aren’t peculiar to the Cape. They’re all along the roadsides here and stands and rows of them adorn countless yards. Mrs M planted some as a Father’s Day present for me a a couple years ago, before she began to get sick---one of the signs something was wrong I should have caught was that she lost interest in gardening. Our lilies aren’t the long-stemmed orange type that are ubiquitous in Chatham and they’ve tended to spring up in... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Sunday, June 17, 2018. Posted Monday, June 25. The effort to delegitimize Obama would get its first messenger when Sarah Palin was announced as McCain’s running mate a few weeks later. I learned of the announcement when I woke up the morning after Obama delivered his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Who is that? I thought, staring at the television screen. But as much as she became a punch line, Palin’s ascendance broke a seal on a Pandora’s box: the innuendo and conspiracy theories that existed in forwarded emails and fringe right-wing websites now... Continue reading

Posted Sunday morning, June 24, 2018. Koko the gorilla takes a selfie for the cover of National Geographic, October 1978. Courtesy of National Geographic via PBS via the Los Angeles Times. I’m behind in my news reading, so I’m just catching up with this… From the Department of That All Too Rare News That Somehow Feels Like Good News Because It Makes You Think Life Isn’t So Bad and It’s Good to Be Alive: Koko the Gorilla is gone. NPR reports: "The Gorilla Foundation is sad to announce the passing of our beloved Koko," the research center says, informing the... Continue reading