The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS, N.C. – In all my travels, with the exception of Yellowstone, this view looking west toward Mount Mitchell is the best spot I’ve found. In some ways, however, it inspires sitting in a comfortable camp chair, staring off into space and doing nothing. But…
Even While Social Distancing Apart“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” – Buddhist Proverb The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS, N.C. — The polar vortex swooped down into the Southland this Mother’s Day weekend and not only froze the…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MARION, N.C. — If May flowers spring from April showers, and adversity is followed by good fortune, then maybe the month of May in the year of the Big C might be a harbinger of better days ahead. We could all use the scent of some flowers…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ala. — The whole world is in shock. If the coronavirus doesn’t kill you, the stress from the economic collapse may. What to do about it? Maybe look on the bright side? This will probably be the coolest summer in a couple of decades. It’s…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – At this sobering time in Earth history, perhaps we should take a moment on this milestone 50th anniversary of Earth Day to reflect a little on where we are as a people in our relationship to the planet. (Earth Day is April 22. We are posting this…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ala. — Are you getting your affairs in order? I know I am. If this is not the end of the world as we know it, I don’t know what else that could go wrong to make it so. Yellowstone could blow and we would…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ala. – It’s a tough business always being brutally honest. But somebody has to do it, right? Sorry in advance. There’s no funny little ditty to sing you this morning. This is just not funny anymore. As I sit here isolated and alone on the…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ala. — The dots on the coronavirus map and the color representing the Republican Party are not the only bright red things around here right now. In the mountain woods of North Alabama, the pollen count is on “Very High.” So your runny nose, sneezing…
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” – — Hunter S. Thompson – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – PENSACOLA, Fla. — On the last Saturday afternoon in March, the Pensacola Bay Bridge should be jammed with Spring Break traffic headed to the beach. But Highway 98 was almost without traffic…
A Teachable Moment – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – PENSACOLA, Fla. — The news is changing so fast on the health and economic impacts of the novel coronavirus pandemic that no matter what I write this minute and this day, it will likely be obsolete by tomorrow. But I do believe strongly…
The Big Picture -Â By Glynn Wilson -Â PENSACOLA, Fla. — This feels surreal, but reality is beginning to set in. It feels like Murphy’s law is in full effect: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” As the novel coronavirus health pandemic continues to grow, and a global economic recession and maybe a…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – PENSACOLA, Fla. — The sun was shining and everyone seemed happy and full of fun on Saturday at the Palafox Market even as the first two deaths from coronavirus were reported in the Sunshine state. Talk among progressives at the Polonzo Bistro included jokes that since COVID-19…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – The dark cloud threatening democracy around the world is spreading like the evil cloud coming out of Mordor hovered over Middle Earth in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series, and the current occupant of the White House in the United States is a big part…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – PENSACOLA, Fla. — The sun was shining and it felt a little like spring was in the air as we pulled out of the Conecuh National Forest this week and crossed over the Alabama state line into Florida. After working on a house in need of renovations…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Driving into the Alabama capital city always feels like a nostalgia trip. It’s impossible to drive down the exit ramp off I-65 on Herron Street, make my way over to Dexter Avenue and head up the hill to the old capitol without having a…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – While we wait for the delayed results of the Iowa Caucuses, what the National Affairs Desk of Rolling Stone magazine is calling Dempocalypse Now — and the election reporting glitch caused the New York Times to shut down it’s election results system on the web — the…
The Big Picture -Â By Glynn Wilson -Â It’s hard to know what the Chinese astrologers were thinking when they came up with the Chinese zodiac, but sometimes their system creates opportunities for word games that also tend to possess political and/or social insight. Take 2020, for example, the Year of the Rat. The Rat…
Sure, if it’s the right woman. But here in Dixie Alley, the frogs think it’s spring already – “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun, 1951 The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – CONECUH NATIONAL FOREST – In a glance at the trending news on…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – CONECUH NATIONAL FOREST – Trump has done it now. All our worst fears about how Donald Trump’s ignorance and abuse of power could screw up the country and the world just came true with his ill-conceived decision to order a drone strike Friday at Baghdad International Airport…
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” – Sinclair Lewis The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – CONECUH NATIONAL FOREST — Before I talk about the year and decade in review in this final column of this eventful year of 2019, I would like to…
