Heading Out to the Rogue’s Harbor This has been the first day of of the grandkids here in Ithaca. While I spent my day getting the carriage house finished from my purge of memorabilia and ready for son Thomas’ arrival tomorrow night, Kim did what Kim loves to do, which is go out and shop for miscellaneous things we need for the weekend. We will have sixteen for the bulk of the holiday weekend, so…
Character Witness Today we got treated with a special witness in the January 6th Special Subcommittee Hearing. It was Cassidy Hutchinson, a staunch Republican Washington DC staffer who has worked on the Hill for Representative Steve Scalise, Senator Ted Cruz and, most recently, worked in the West Wing of the White House as Special Aide to the President and top staffer for Mark Meadows, the White House Chief of Staff on January 6th, 2021. By…
Forbidden Fruit There are certain topics that we all want to avoid. It is not about polite company, it is about a thorny ethical conundrum that has no easy answers. We all like certainty whenever we can get it, and what that means is that where there is no certainty there is angst. Very few topics I can think of are as fraught with uncertainty as much as the topic of abortion is. We hang…
The Ethicist Don’t you just hate holy rollers? Those people who decry wrongdoers and say they should be locked up? They stand on their moral high horses and suggest that others have sinned in unforgivable ways. They point their fingers and say, “‘J’accuse…!” Well, I am no Emile Zola and am unlikely to win one, much less two, Nobel prizes for my written commentary on why Donald J. Trump is guilty of crimes against the…
Slowly, Slowly… Since last Thursday when the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack had its first, introductory session and laid out their plan to prosecute their case against those who conspired to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power after the last presidential election. At the center of that conspiracy, according to the Committee, is none other than ex-President Donald J. Trump, who they believe they can prove both took decisive action and…
Worlds Colliding Writing is something I find very soothing to do. I was recently so upset about an incident involving gun laws and some people I know who are involved at the most sordid end of the gun manufacturing business, that I wrote a story denouncing the whole affair and sent it to a subgroup of related friends for consideration. The reaction I got back was difficult for me. I spent a moment wearing a…
Governance Provenance Where does the concept of governance come from? I have read the anthropological books like Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond that delineate the history of governance from the tribal to today’s democracy in all of the areas of the world. What Diamond suggests is that none of the development of civilization are really due to any inherent superiority of one race or culture of mankind, but is rather much more attributable…
Dead Babies Can’t Take Care of Themselves Remember Alice Cooper? He/they was born in 1948 in Detroit to a typical post-war middle class American family as Vincent Damon Furnier. It was once his family moved to Arizona that he decided that rock n’roll was his future. He hit his shock rock stride in the late 60’s and early 70’s when he and his pals realized that there was more to rock n’roll than just music.…
Simply Irresistible I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Robert Palmer, the British singer/songwriter who wrote and sang the top late 80’s hit records Addicted to Love and Simply Irresistible, but both catch-phrases that title and end these two songs stick out clearly in my mind, so I’m sure I’ve heard him sing many times despite not knowing who he was. The man was a true 80’s phenom with his elegant attire and his blend…
Choosing Life It has occurred to me that while I very often write about the hottest political topics of the moment, I have gone the better part of a week since the abortion topic hit our headlines in such a stark manner as it has, and I have not yet chosen to write on that topic. It is a hard topic to address, not because my views are conflicted, but because there is almost no…