Wayward Landlubber

Many of us were mislead by the Bond films and the assorted criminal masterminds to emerge from the dark places where villains assemble to take control of the world from the "globalist hierarchy", fictional groups like SMERSH, SMEGMA,  or whatever sinister groups are out rhere. It is not hard to find a real-world corallary to Bond villainy. The problem is James Bond, 007,  was in a linear universe, where the battle was between battle MI-6 and whatever evil profiteer he, Bond, is assigned to eliminate with "extreme sanction".  Sometimes the CIA rides in the passenger seat. In the real world MI-6 must fight several villains at once and there are more than seven double O's needed. And that's only one spy agency battling the dark knights. We are not sure where the CIA fits into that picture.  Our fascination with spy fiction has been entertaining, but like all of our battles with the real villains, we are fighting their passionate quest for world domination. We h

     The Constitution of the United States of America was signed on Sept 17, 1787, two hundred and thirty-five years ago. Most great political movements have had about a three hundred year life-span. The November 5 elections of 2024, may tell us unambiguously if we have reached the end of our great experiment in democracy. The sad thing is that one of the two influential parties has given up on legislating in favor of insult and invective. They fail even at that, in spite of being on the road to aquire those questionable qualities since at least the 1980s. Yet they manage to succeed at getting people elected. We know how this occured. We know who the culprits are. Political pressure groups that call themselves think tanks, state Republican officials gaming the elections in red states to exclude or discourage some voters from voting, and then the Electoral college. Add in a compliant Supreme Court which owes their loyalty to the Federalist Society, a group that sees that conservative ju

People are weird. Even people who are not part of that other party. The weird party. I was walking into my volunteer gig at our county's Democratic Headquarters. The morning guy, Mike, was hanging up the phone with a WTF look on his face.                                                                       " This woman just called, she wanted our help finding her ID."                        "Where did she lose it?"             Mike smiled.                        "She was held in the basement of the Whitehouse for 30 years," he said. Naturally, Bill Clinton was part of it. But wait till you hear the rest of the trio. Kevin Mannix, and whoever is the President of Willamette University."                       " Kevin Mannix? The perennial loser in Oregon politics? That Kevin Mannix?"                       "The same", Mike replied.                        "What did you tell her?"                       " What coul9d I

I'm a Democrat. A liberal Democrat, to be sure, but I have never found any other political organization that gives me a plausible possibility of accomplishing a minimal amount of the issues for which I advocate. Democracy aint a sure thing. As you might expect, I'm often in a sour mood following our elections, every two and four years. Sometimes we have a brief sugar high, after which we return to bitter disappointment. Where we remain until a new face gives us hope that this time we might have reason for hope. Not unqualified hope, to be sure, but a too-brief reason for hope for our future. It is the fate of the Democratic mind-set. We are not in the habit of obtaining adherence by trickery or force. After confronting a candidate that has the chutzpah to say out loud that he wants to be a unitary executive. After watching the Heritage Foundation coalesce behind the man that threatened a post-Constitutional America, then skitter away when their Project 2025, or Agenda 47, or wh

I'm a Democrat. Except for a couple months in 1972, I always have been. I persist. What alternative is there? Back in 1972, I was young and full of myself. I figured that I would change my party affiliation, so I could vote for Congressman Paul McCloskey in his primary run for president against Richard Nixon. What could possibly go wrong? There were Republicans in that far-off time who were "not so bad". Some of them were personable, affable even. The kind of people you could invite for a cup of coffee and hope and hope they might counter with an invite for whiskey. When standing before a television camera, their fangs did not drip saliva when they spoke. As you may have guessed, I wasted that vote. Young people do that. Sometime during the Reagan administration Republicans became worse. They had, by that time become wedded to Dixiecrats and Dominionist Christians as well as the corporate class who abjure any kind of regulations they don't like. Regulating others is f

Several years ago, in the opening days of the Iraq War, I wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Statesman-Journal in opposition to that war. I was not then a writer, which is not to say I am one now. I had had a learning experience in my teens writing a Letter to the Editor. I was maybe 15 years old, and I was under the influence of my dad and uncles, who supported going to war in Vietnam. In that letter I called our two great Senators of the day, Mark Hatfield (R) and Wayne Morse (D), both in opposition to that war, "worms in the bowels of government". I have never apologized to Senator Hatfield; I did hike up the trail leading to the Morse Family Farm in Eugene a few years ago to apologize to the plaque honoring SEN. Morse. Yes, it was way too late, but sometimes we learn slowly, and sometimes life gets in the way. I still owe Senator Hatfield an apology, though I'm quick to respond that Republicans were better in that day. My efforts as a letter-writer were held back unt