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 ...

Those of us who admire the Democratic process and proclaim it's strengths, even though it's greatness has become something of an irony of late, have arrived at an inflection point. It's not working out. To be fair, it has often not worked out, at least for those of us citizens not on an inside track. The eponymous CRT would be just one example. But we could always say before, that we were improving, we were reaching for what was beyond our grasp. Sometimes we were able to hold on to that thing that was just out of reach, but our grasp was not quite solid enough to hold on firmly..      I'm an admirer of philosophy. The act of philosphyzing, not necessarily the philosophers. It is the only option for those of us untutored in philosophy. Had I been born a century earlier, I'd be one of the old men around the pot-bellied stove at the hardware store, solving the various problems to come before our discussion group. Naturally, the Greek philosophers, though we know them ...

     Literary history gave us the story of Casandra, daughter to King Prium of Troy. Most people know that she had the gift of seeing into the future. What few of us know is that, because she had rebuffed the attention of a young God, Apollo I think, her gift was never to be believed by others, though she could never decieve people with her predictions.  Consequently, when she warned her famous father, to, "beware of Greeks bearing gifts" he ignored her warning and accepted a Trojan Horse from the army of Greek islanders mobilized to recapture Helen, her brother Paris' wife and return her to King Meneleis harem. Women's independence was not valued in the thirteenth century BCE, so we can only speculate that Helen fled the Island of Sparta, and Menaleus harem willingly, preferring the handsome Paris, who had offered her a home in Ilium, to the attentions of a warrior king and a place in his harem. There is more to this story of her short life, but I will save that for...

     I am writing this only a few days from getting my parole from Facebook jail. I am by now familiar with the facility. The food sucks! My graffiti still adorns the walls of my cell from my first visit. I have violated community standards more often than Ron DeSantis has cruelly violated political norms for his own aggrandizement.  It is not against community standards to accuse former First Lady Obama of being a male or transgender or some other sexual dysphoria that MAGAts don't understand. But it is definitely against community standards to call the woman spreading that vicious lie the B-word. I am pretty sure of the fact of my accusation of her being that B-word. Her intemperate posts were a pretty good indication, i think. I am assuming the woman in question is a woman, though i can't be certain. I mean who falls for that appeal by a young women displaying her cleavage anymore?  She has a female name and Pic, but those could be false. She may also be a se...

     I have violated too many hard and fast rules in my life. I now prefer to have behavioral guidelines, I don't feel guilty for transgressing them. Such guidelines as, old men near the incontinental divide should beware of wearing tan pants in public. Or, if by some magic,  government helps most of us, it is most likely led by Democrats. Or, it's best not to listen to a politicians advice on prayer or a preachers advice on voting. There are exceptions, but these general rules have become important in recent years.      Since about the 1980s we have been hearing about Dominionist Christianity. At first it hid in the shadows of evangelical Christianity, but it has emerged in full and potent force since obout the 2010s. Dominionism is a belief that Christians must, must, take control of government, business and culture in order for Jesus to return to Earth. Given the lack of tolerance exhibited by Dominionist Christians, it is not likely that these are ...