Stories

Six Words: Carbon, Competition, Tropical, Favor, Panel, Sunshine

This week the 28th UN Climate Change Conference, or Conference of the Parties, is meeting in Dubai, a city in the United Arab Emirates. The meeting is being referred to as COP28. Of course, a focus is on carbon and how to reduce its harmful effects in our atmosphere. Although technically Dubai is located in the tropics, it is far from what I think of as a tropical climate. Since it is becoming winter, the temperature in Dubai this week is a high only around 80 and a low around 67. It is a desert and that means that it does have a lot of sunshine, so it is a favorable environment for solar panels. Dubai also has a lot of oil, so as long as the oil lasts, it will compete with solar panels as a source of power. All that oil makes a slippery road into the future.

Six Words: Value, Tactic, Frighten, Accessible, Echo, Designer

For a semester or two, sometime during the 1980’s, I taught a Junior Achievement course at our local high school. I met with an Economics class and the teacher had to want Junior Achievement to participate. I think I met with the class once a week for a couple of months. I’m pretty sure the students learned something, but I know that I did.

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Six Words: Museum, Prison, Aloof, Birthday, Supply, Sequence

As her birthday neared, she contemplated the sequence of events that brought her to this environment. Was she like a muse, in one of the temples that would later be called museums? What, really, is the difference between a museum and a prison. Both are places that contain things that are unusual and that most people will never be near outside of these edifices.

Museums, she decided, are places that people cherish, because of what they preserve and what they teach. Prisons are places that are mostly ignored, as people remain aloof, simply not caring.

I wonder, do they supply birthday cakes in prison?

Six Words: Blackmail, Marketing, Dictate, Window, Retain, Minimum

You may have seen at least one movie that involved someone seeing something through a window that they thought they could use for blackmail. Among the first things that is usually done is to take pictures. Then informing the victims and threatening to market or reveal the pictures or videos. The blackmailer will determine a minimum price or conditions for destroying the pictures. They’ll dictate the terms for the exchange. But we know that they will always retain the original files.

One famous movie along those lines was Rear Window. It was released in 1954 starring Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, and Raymond Burr. There are many others. ChatGPT can give you a list of titles, but it will keep the endings a secret.

Six Words: Value, Tactic, Frighten, Accessible, Echo, Designer

The designer of the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7 did not value the lives of the Hamas attackers nor of the residents of Gaza either. His tactic knew that Israel does value life, and the attack was intended to frighten everyone that heard about it or saw the videos that the attackers themselves broadcast.

The designers try to make themselves inaccessible by sheltering underneath the largest hospital in Gaza City, hiding behind patients and doctors, the young, the old, and those in-between. But even as they hide, they can hear the echo of Israel’s retaliation and the purging of Hamas from Gaza. They hear the sound of the words of Psalm 121: “the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps”.

Six Words: Appearance, Limit, Donor, Acute, Planet, Filter

Prior to the 20th century people observed the appearance of a planet closer to the sun than Mercury. Acute observations, limited by the technologies of the 17th through the early 20th century, seemed to reinforce those observations. Unexplained variations in the orbit of Mercury donated to the theory.

Eventually, filtered by better equipment and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, the existence of the planet was disproved. It did gain renewed life with the development of the Star Trek series. The theoretical planet was named Vulcan and we all know that that was the home of Mr. Spock!

Six Words: Relief, Shoulder, Housing, Brilliance, Displace, Entitlement

Sometimes we all need a shoulder to lean on, something or someone that gives a sense of relief. Sometimes that relief involves providing housing, like when an adult child needs to move back home. Of course, when that happens, you’ve probably already displaced everything that was in their room. Not only displaced it, but actually gotten rid of it and replaced it with brilliant new things, destroying your adult child’s assumption of entitlement, and that your life has stood still while theirs moved on.

Six Words: Ideology, Vision, Hunting, Decay, Consultation, Format

When choosing who to vote for in an election, one approach is to consider the ideology of a candidate. To consider whether the candidate has an ideology – or even knows what the word means. Does the candidate have a vision, and does that ideology and vision align with yours. You may hunt for evidence of the candidate’s ideology and whether there is any consistency. You may consult with others.

With some current candidates, you may discover that rather than a noble ideology, you find decay. And then, just like on a digital camera where you want to start with a clean slate, it seems like the world would be better if you could just press a button and reformat their minds.

Six Words: Ample, Subway, Pleasant, Harmony, Coffee, Suffer

The rapid transit system in Dallas is known as DART and only part of it is a subway. The rapid transit system in Chicago is the CTA and that includes the rail parts that are the L and the subway. Part of both is at ground level too. Riding the systems can be pleasant, as long as there is harmony among the passengers, ample room and seats, and no one suffers from having coffee spilled on them.

Six Words: Endeavor, Enigmatic, Whimsical, Serene, Allure, Dilemma

I’ve had a dilemma this week. I missed last week’s Six Words Forum and I had to make a decision. Did I want to spend a serene week and Saturday afternoon ignoring the challenge writing something for today? Did I want to endeavor to get this week’s words. I always try to write something at least a little bit whimsical when I do participate, although sometimes you all have thought they were enigmatic. As you can see and hear, the allure of your company and of your creativity enticed me to join you once again.