Wayward Landlubber

My dad used to call them marble bags. Those white briefs that, once we are potty-trained, become our big-boy pants. Tighty-whities. At some point, as we eagerly approach adultery, some of us start looking farther afield on the underwear rack. Boxers wait for our approach. Pillow-slips. Instead of wrapping our nether areas in soft cotton, boxers fit like a loose swimsuit. Cotton in various colors and designs, sitting crisply inside your jeans. I started wearing boxers when I was 18, just short of that day I would enter adultery. Over the years underwear became made with rayon thread. First came bikini briefs, nestling things somewhat more closely. And for a while, I wore them; enjoyed them. But we gain weight and the rayon loses its elasticity. And the lifetime of those tight marble-bags are somewhat less than a penurious individual might desire. Who wants to spend money on something that can't be seen? Another advantage to boxers is, on a crisp winter day, and far from the ski lodg...

My dad was a car guy. He lovingly washed his car each Saturday. When I became tall enough to reach the middle of the roof, he paid me $15., a handsome some them, to wash it. Every season, he applied Turtle Wax rubbing it lovingly into the outside of the car and buffing it away with a chamois. Water beaded up on the paint of dad's car like wax on a candle. Similarly, he was a shade-tree mechanic and did his own brake jobs, tune-ups, etc. We could be traveling down the road and he would say, "Hear that, Larry. My right-front tire needs air. This was in the era when tires had inner-tubes and white sidewalls. Before radial tires. That gene did not live long in my body. Outside of the $15 for washing the car.  Cars in those days were caressed by owners in the way AR-15s are caressed today in Republican circles. Gasoline was 39 cents/gallon. It was leaded. Nobody bought regular, and service stations offered not only service, but were staffed with mechanics, not cashiers. Cars In tho...

I borrowed this title from a book written by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, two podcasters whom I like listening to. I have not read it, which puts me on the same footing as Republicans, but I'm old and have been political since we were seeing lights that did not exist in the tunnels of Vietnam. It is here that I must reveal that i once wrote a letter to the editor of the Oregon Statesman, when I was 14 years old. A time, I must plead, when young men are not known for their subtlety. In this letter, which was published, I called Wayne Morse and Mark Hatfield "worms in the bowels of government". Within the next 4 years my outlook changed. It took me some 40 years to hike up the trail to the Wayne Morse farm, with my ex-wife where i apologized to the bronze plaque comemorating our greatest Senator. A Senator who could not abide the Republican party of his day, which is being repeated in todays Republican party. The great old party is smothering the Grande Old Party.  Co...

Many of you know that I have for nearly 2 years been a volunteer at my County Democrats office. Some of you might suspect that I occasionally think deeper than what comes out of the right side of the political spectrum, not a real high bar, though the limbo stick would be more to my liking. Some of you might have entertained the thought that, when it comes to sandpaper, I'm with the heavier grit. So on frequent occasions I'm forced into one of the subtler Philosophical conundrums. Recently I was asked, while at the Dems table at Saturday Mkt, if I believed in Jesus. I demurred at first but admitted that I was an atheist who for a long time agonized between agnostic and atheist. Okay, it wasn't agony, I just thought abit. When they had left I was advised by someone I respect that I should have not engaged the religion question. I understand. I was asked straight out. I demurred but could not disengage. I told the truth. I will chew on that for a while, but I'm comfortabl...

All great advances are at best a mixed blessing. Civilization for tens of thousands of years was spread, not by nice people knocking at the door of you yurt purporting to save your soul, but at the edge of a sharpened sword, scimitar, spear, or arrows launched from a galloping horse. Later, as civilization advanced, the killing power of the weapons we used to spread civilization advanced with it. Sometimes the leaders of those civilizations could be somewhat trusted. Others, whose motives could not be trusted, used the new weapons technology provided to accrue power beyond what they were allotted. That is the dilemma that now confronts us.  Ukraine, a country fighting an invasion from a bigger and more powerful neighbor, illustrates the qualities of advanced weaponry to fight off its attacker. Russia was convinced Ukraine could be conquered in a matter of days. They had powerful tanks, a great Navy, and an inexhaustible supply of young people to risk death and injury in a quest to ...

 What could possibly go wrong? No worries, folks Big Tech has got you covered. Can't write a complete sentence? Tech has got you covered. Artificial Intelligence is purporting to be the great 21st Century blessing to mankind. It can drive your car, write your term paper, guide your drone. It can even help maga to rite gooder. Or so we are told.  Here's the problem; there's no responsible human in this operation and I'm not convinced that machines can be relied on for compensation when they mess up. I do admit that finding responsible humans in the tech industry is an extraordinary challenge. And they have not yet achieved a perfect record. Will they ever? Technology billionaires are confident they will. Technology billionaires stand to be well compensated by success in those fields. Those of us who remember watching 2001:A SPACE ODYSSEY, possibly stoned, remember the HAL 9000 computer. And we can't get that warning out of our minds. Of course many of us struggle in ...