I have struggled to write about the events that unfolded over the weekend in Minneapolis. The brutal and unwarranted killing of Alex Pretti is all over social media and shows no signs of leaving the news cycle any time soon. In fact, the political fallout from the killing of Pretti has been so severe and bipartisan that it now seems that Trump is finally backing down in a way that he was not prepared to…
The history of American public service reflects the nation’s ambivalence about government itself. On the one hand, we consider public service essential and laudatory at many times, and yet it is also often distrusted. From a few hundred employees in 1789 to millions today, the transformation mirrors America’s evolution from agricultural republic to industrial to information age superpower, with public servants adapting to meet each era’s challenges while maintaining democratic values. The evolution of American…
I read an article yesterday about a speed painter that paints giant canvases of Christ. She has become a favorite of Donald Trump and her name is Vanessa Horabuena. It’s an interesting name because the name essentially means “at a good/fortunate hour”—a propitious moment or good timing—which when used as a surname likely expressed hopes for fortune and good luck for the family line. What is speed painting, you ask (or, at least, I asked)?…
I can’t see more than 100 feet this morning on account of a heavy and foreboding fog that has enveloped our hilltop. It’s a pretty normal January day here in San Diego with the high temperature expected to be about 60 with the morning starting out in the low 50s. There is really nothing to complain about weather wise. That’s not the case for most of the rest of the country, where the temperatures have…
I’ve suddenly had this weird realization. I started listening to several of the Dan Brown novels on symbology. I started with his latest, called Secret of Secrets and have moved backwards to The Lost Symbol. The book is Dan Brown’s third Robert Langdon novel, set in Washington D.C. over a single night. The central mystery revolves around Freemasonry and the legend of an “Ancient Mystery” – secret wisdom supposedly hidden in Washington D.C. by the…
I have spent a lot of time all across this hemisphere from top to bottom. I lived for sixty years in the United States in the Midwest, the Northeast and now the West. Granted, I have not lived in the Deep South (unless you count being born in Florida) nor have I lived in the Northwest. But I have travelled throughout the continental United States and visited each and every state of the union at…
I have noticed lately a proliferation of movies about the final days of the Third Reich. In these days of personalization, it’s hard to tell if that is a true trend or whether Amazon Prime and Netflix have just decided to feed my interest in that topic. One of the best of these is Downfall, made in 2005, an award-winning depiction of Adolf Hitler’s last days in his Berlin bunker as told by his final…
On the spectrum of sociability, Kim and I probably rank at the higher end. There are certainly more social animals than us, but we like people and prefer to be around them rather than not. I have never understood people who prefer to travel alone. I’m not a fan of too big of a group when traveling, but it always seems like more fun to have a gang. For thirty years now, I’ve had a…
Sometimes you encounter a day when its not a weekend and yet there are absolutely no errands that are critically demanding attention. This is the case for both Kim and me today. Don’t get me wrong…there are always things that can be done to fill up the day, but sometimes there is nothing that is in desperate need of attention. In our case today, the Christmas decorations are all down. The repairmen have fixed or…
The Anza-Borrego Desert “superbloom” is a spectacular wildflower phenomenon that occurs in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in Southern California, typically between late February and April. A superbloom happens when an unusually large number of wildflowers bloom simultaneously across the desert landscape, transforming the normally brown and sparse terrain into vibrant carpets of color. This requires a specific combination of conditions. First and foremost, there must be adequate winter rainfall, generally at least 3-5 inches between…