Monthly Archives: February 2026

My friends call me Bob. They also call me Robert. Either one’s okay, friend.

Back to work.

There’s nothing so important that it can’t wait for the cat to get out of the way of your computer screen.

I’ve had six or seven careers. I lost my resume.

Sometimes I get so excited about having something to write that I forget to write it down.

The Bible has some nifty aphorisms.

So does Charley Harper.

So does Oscar Wilde.

Shakespeare had a thing or two to say, but it’s in English.

What’s going to happen when you start driving?

Ode to Joy has never failed to lift my spirits.

The best medium for the Internet is material designed to disappear in two days. Unfortunately, this page is designed to disappear in two minutes.

You can be imprisoned for just about anything, but a smile is pretty low risk.

If you go through life without someone thinking you’re crazy, you’re doing something wrong.

Things aren’t going to turn out as predicted.

It’s only taken 67 years for to slow down.

How do I know when it’s time to stop working? When the cat rubs against my legs. How do I know when it’s time to keep working? When the cat rubs against my legs.

You don’t have to answer the phone just because it has a ring-tone you like.

Infinite mystery: cats—women—God

It’s short as a syllable, long as a book. No matter where you travel; it’s the only way to go.

Copyright is God’s joke on the Internet.

Some of this material appears in prior work. Some of it will appear in future work. I’ve hired a high-dollar lawyer to sue myself for infringement. Some of it is Mom’s, but I don’t think she’ll sue.

I recently suspended Straight Line Logic from 1/15 to “probably 2/8,” because of circumstances attendant on the death and memorial service of my mom, Ella Mae Warner. I had a number of things I had to do for the service, including write her eulogy. I was mourning her passing, and I didn’t feel that I had the time or the energy to post on SLL every night. I posted a video of the service and my eulogy yesterday.

Not posting every night became an unexpected bright spot during this time. My schedule is such that I read alternative media, my main news source, early in the morning. I have a day job. It takes 11/2 to 2 hours after dinner, seven days a week, to cull from my alternative media reading what I consider the best articles and post them on SLL. During my hiatus, I realized that nightly posting had become a grind. I’ve been doing it since 2014, except for an occasional short vacation, and it’s been a pleasure getting my evenings back.

Deaths of close loved ones often prompt reexamination of one’s own life. I am 67. My mom’s passing has led me to ask the question: if it’s a grind, why do it? Life’s too short.

Writing my own articles has never been a grind, and I will continue to post them on Straight Line Logic. However, my pace of late has been about one a month, and I don’t anticipate that changing. It may even slow. I’m finding it increasingly tedious and difficult to try to cut through the vitriol, hypocrisy, lies, and now, AI-generated lies, to write original and worthwhile articles.

Many of my regular nightly readers will be disappointed, but I believe they’ll understand. It’s time for a change.

Check back once in a while for my articles. As in the past, they will also be posted on other websites if the people running them so choose.

Thank you.

Robert

The YouTube video of my mom’s service. For an extraordinary video-within-a video, put together by my brother-in-law, 47:05.

My eulogy.

Mom

Mom took a memoir writing class from 2009 until 2011, and excerpts from her stories are in this eulogy. What better way to convey her life than through her own words?

I was born in Silverton Colorado on July 17, 1937.

I am the third child of Edna May Corlett Michael and Enos Samuel Michael (Shorty), and the baby sister of Frederick William Michael (Freddy) age 5, and Clarence Richard Michael (Dickie) 15 months old.

Mom’s dad, Shorty, was 5 feet, 2 inches tall, but he was the tallest person in his family. He had a seventh-grade education and began his career as a hard-rock miner when he was 15. He married Edna in 1932 and they divorced in 1939, when Mom was two.

Daddy was granted custody of us kids. I asked if Edna had fought for custody. When he told me no, I cried. I wanted to be wanted by her. I have often wondered what my life would have been like with both a mother and father, even if they were divorced.

It was the tail end of the Great Depression, and Shorty had three children to support. He couldn’t bring them with him to the mining camps, so he had to find people he could pay to take them in. Sometimes the children were split up. When Mom was four, the father she had rarely seen came for her and Freddy, to take them to a new lady in a new town, Winnemucca, in northeastern Nevada.

Daddy told us that . . . we were going to live with a lady called Mrs. Mayo.

I’m always reminded of May Mayo whenever I hear the phrase ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’

Mom wasn’t exaggerating. The slightest transgression got a whack from Mrs. Mayo’s razor strap. Backtalk, as she called it, got a slap across the mouth. There were endless chores.

Unless Daddy was visiting, we were served small portions that never filled us up and were never allowed to ask for seconds. Usually, we had to sit on the floor behind the stove and wait until the grownups were finished before we could eat. . . . I stole food every chance I got.

When she was seven-years old, tragedy struck that would literally stay with Mom her entire life. Brother Freddy had run away and Brother Dickie had joined Mom at Mrs. Mayos’. Dickie had a friend, Robert Woods, who had made a bow and arrow from a willow branch. Mom wouldn’t let Woods and Dickie in the house, trying to stop them with a broom.

When I wouldn’t budge, he pulled the string back and let the arrow fly. I felt a piercing pain in my left eye and it was wet when I put my hand up.

Continue reading →