Douglas Whaley

Maria and Clayton When my husband David and I visited my son, Clayton Whaley, and his wife Maria, in the Seattle, Washington, area this past summer, at one point we were all standing in their kitchen and Maria playfully suggested something to Clayton as a possible thing he should do and he replied without hesitation, “That’s an UNC.”  [It rhymes with "dunk."]  David and I both laughed.  Who knew?  My son and daughter-in-law use “UNC” too!  Clayton must have gotten it from me, and, happily this very useful meme has now been handed off to a new generation.  I was very pleased. The initials mean “Under No Circumstances,” and are used whenever what has just been proposed has no chance of happening if the speaker has any control over the situation. It comes up often, for example, when David and I are sitting in a movie theater watching previews prior to the showing of the feature film.  Some film previews, of course, ...

Looking back on World War II it is almost incomprehensible how someone like Adolph Hitler could have persuaded the German people to embrace his madness.  And, minor student of history that I am, I’ve often wondered that it really happened.  I’m half German (my mother’s side) and the Germans are a very practical people, rooted in reality, dedicated to making things work.  How could they have become so accommodating to evil to elect that awful government into power and then allowed it to thrive until it almost conquered the globe with its deadly choices?  Certainly, this madness, so demonstrably wrong, couldn’t happen again, and particularly not in an age where information is available at the touch of a phone pad and facts are widely spread so that truth is obvious to anyone paying attention to the issues. Then came the election of Donald Trump and now I nightly slump in my chair at the renewed madness loosed upon ...