Wayward Landlubber

     We have honored thinkers for longer than we have had a "Western Democracy". For those who watch Foxnews, that was about 2500 years before John Wayne. People think about many things, philosophy, science, physics, political science, medicine and many things that require sustained thought about serious issues, and a published record of accomplishments. Most people stopped thinking about how deeply people thought prior to the Greek philosophers of ancient Athens, even though there were Egyption pyramids 2000 years before classical Greece. Somebody had to do some serious thinking in order to accomplish all of the schools of thought necessary for that construction. From cutting and transporting the massive limestone and granite blocks, to the method of lifting them into place (still not understood), to the design of the various internal chambers. Adding to that we must think of the construction of the barges to transport those massive blocks down the Nile to the constructi...

     Many years ago, about 10 years BTM, before Trump mistake, I was watching the Dylan Rattigan show on MSNBC. I liked his show because he discussed economics, a science that most of us incompletely understand, which is why republicans can get us to believe such crazy stuff as the Laffer Curve and Trickle-down economics. Rattigan's guest on this day was a fellow who billed himself as a "stand-up economist". He was at the time a Professor of Economics at Reed College. Clearly not Harvard or some other fancy-pants university, but anytime somebody can find humor in what is called, "the dismal science", they have my attention. He had a pretty good shtick. He was able to explain such economic models as Keynesianism, Free-market economics, and other issues, while finding the humor most of us would miss. Before I get too far here, have you considered the irony that an economist could be funny? Have you ever listened to Allan Greenspan try to explain irrational exubera...

     I'm a writer, of sorts. It occurs to me that, until a writer gets critiqued in a national publication, it's probably best to leave some daylight between ambition and attainment. Nobody pays to read what I write, and I don't have any offers, but I write anyway.  I had a need to say something for many years but said nothing that lasted beyond a short memory. I am now finding my voice. It has not arrived quickly, but will not fade away quickly. At first I started with a memoir. It turned out to be a pretty good story, though underappreciared. I had no interest in technical writing, have no aptitude for poetry, an interest in screen-writing though not enough time to attain that dream. One famous screenwriter wrote the memorable  line about a "writ writ for a rat", if only I can learn to write lines of that quality. Writing a novel requires an ability to write about people who may be complete strangers in real life. I once said to my oldest son Quinn, who has a ...