The Longest Days Last night I stumbled on a Netflix series about the people around Adolf Hitler and how the National Socialist German Workers’ Party grew to prominence and control in Germany. The bottom line is that it was a slow and steady process that took fifteen years to take serious root and then lasted for twelve years. It started in 1918 as a direct result of the ignominious defeat of Germany in WWI and…
Character Debate I am always reminded of the role played by Michael Douglas in The American President when he finally decides he has had enough of the high road and ignoring his opponent’s nasty jibes (his opponent, Senator Rumson played by Richard Dreyfus). He calls a press briefing and finally says, “being President of this country is entirely about character.” And he goes on to say, “We have serious problems to solve, and we need…
Pause and Reflect It’s Saturday morning and I am finally back in the hot tub after what seems like a month of toing and froing. What a hard life, right? Not so much hard, but life is certainly more challenging than normal for everyone and that means that pausing and reflecting is an even better thing now than normal. What exactly is so challenging? Let’s start with a family review. To begin with, as Mark…
The March of the Ants When I was a kid I used to like ants. To be fair, I had lived in Venezuela for four years and then two years in Costa Rica. I think I may have mentioned the little tropical valley there several thousand times. What I may not have explained is that the thing that makes the tropics the tropics is that the daily weather works something like this; it starts off…
1917 For some reason, the past year has all been about the stuff of a century ago. To begin with, Peter Jackson had his project to take the 100 hours of old black & white film footage from the British Imperial War Museum and do his magic. He did more than the usual coloration of an old film. He did something magic to the old footage of stilted and surreal soldiers who suffered through the…
Homeward Boundaries It’s sunset here at Casa Moonstruck, one of the loveliest times of day with the sun setting out over the Hills of Fallbrook and the Pacific Ocean. A few weeks ago I decided to note that about a month after the summer solstice, the sun set just north of the right hand hill of the three hills I face in that direction (note to self – figure out if there are names…
Feeling Weakness I have probably matched the The Equalizer and The Equalizer II each five or more times, but I cannot ever seem to pass it by when its on the cable listing, so I’m watching it again (the original) now. To begin with, like many people, I am a big fan of Denzel Washington. I like the fact that he does as good a job as a bad guy as he does as a…
Back to the Tahoe Again Tomorrow is the last day of our trip to Northern California and Oregon. If you look at the map, our route has taken us up along the coast from Sonoma all the way up the Oregon Coast to the southern border of Washington, just over the Columbia River. From there up the Columbia most of the length of the Columbia River Gorge and then down through the volcanic forests of…
Into the Breach Today we are trekking Eastward from Astoria, Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River, towards the famous Columbia River Gorge. That will take us directly past Portland, the scene of the greatest crime against American democracy the country has ever known. Just being close to Portland gets my blood boiling. We will start the day with a visit to Fort Clatsop in the midst of the Lewis and Clark National Park.…
Rushin’ Around the Russian River A few years ago, Kim and I joined our friends Gary and Oswaldo on the perfunctory Alaska Cruise for a week. We went up to the Glaciers that make for the scattering of islands where Sitka and Ketchikan are located. One of the things all Alaska Cruise tourists see is the influence of Russia on the 50th state. The Russian Tsars pushed eastward across the North Pacific as early as…