Wayward Landlubber

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 ...

There's  a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean near, speaking relatively in ocean distances, the Cocos Island. At one time this tiny island, the third smallest island in the vast Pacific, was a wealthy paradise. A wealthy gated community thousands of nautical miles from any other island. A community that needed no gates. Or walls. The perfect place for the Republican wishing to remain genetically undiluted. I make no mention of being deluded. Few people have ever visited the Island of Nauru, there are no airports, the best way would be to go by boat. Sailboats, because of the vast distance. It's wealth was at one time in guano. Birds have been visiting that island, and others, where they would nest from their long ocean journey, gorge themselves on the fat fish, and evacuate this orgy of digestion on the rich hillside of the island. Guano is rich in nitrogen. There were so many birds who had stopped by Nauru, over the millenia, that for a couple centuries great sailing barges, the...

I've been on Facebook for a fair amount of time and have something of a profile. I'm also quietly proud that I like to troll righties. Some would say that I shouldn't take advantage of someone as stupid as maga. They would have been right in a more amenable time. That is not now! The blatant lies and disinformation from the right must be countered, lest they multiply out of control. Lest they further damage our future. As evidence let us talk about Pizzagate, as if it was a thing, like Watergate.  According to the story the maga underworld spread in 2016, Hillary Clinton and John Podestra ran a child sex ring from a basement in the Ping Pong Pizza Parlor. I didn’t make this up. A young man from Maryland packed up his assault style rifle and drove to Ping Pong Pizza to save those children. After firing a round in the floor, which fortunately did not go pinging around Ping-Pong Pizza and into some child's ribs, it became apparent there was no basement to run a child sex r...