Wayward Landlubber

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...

Republicans have been somewhat mired these days, like the Pete Seeger song of the Vietnam era, 'Knee Deep in the Big Muddy and the Damned Fool Says, Push on.' Like the Tar-baby scene from Disney's Song of the South, no longer seen in a liberal household. It does seem to fit in the Republican household. Since J D Vance stumbled onto the scene, Republican mouthpieces, and blondes with deep cleavage and shallow minds, have been playing news-room Twister, trying to gloss over the daily gaffs of its Presidential candidate and his DEI-hire vice-president nominee. Vice presidential is a quality beyond the reach of Mr. Vance and many other Republicans. This is something of an irony to someone old enough to remember when President Biden, I still like the sound of that, was known for his many gaffs. I may have mentioned this before, but REPUBLICANS SUCK AT HUMOR. The blonde joke seems to be the highest achievement of the conservative humorist. Jokes that oppress the oppressed; not jo...

You can never go wrong if you follow the native wisdom of Mark Twain. One of his many memorable  sayings is:   "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lighting and the lightnin' bug." President Biden delivered the lighting and that lightning ignited a conflagration. Our former friends on the right have been merciless in attacking President Brandon, I mean Biden. It's not just attacking his 81 year-old gait. "He's old, he's infirm, he's even suffering dementia" according to them. These rhetorical gems are delivered in service to a narcissistic fellow who actually said that he would be a dictator "only on day one". That would be an historical first! He also said he wanted to be a Unitary executive, whatever that means. Whatever that means, it most surely leaves Congress out of the loop. And finally, he wants to be a President in a "post-Constitutional America". This is the scary...