To Be or Not to Be In the pendulum swing of politics, Mr. Trump and his Republican lackeys in Congress have caused the pendulum swing as far right as I can imagine. When I was recently on a motorcycle trip with a solidly red friend, he asked me with genuine curiosity why I thought some people in the country are throwing their support behind Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren when their positions are clearly…
Bloomberg v. Buttigieg I am, needless to say, watching the field of Democratic contenders to the 2020 election nomination with great interest. In fact, I am watching it with a level of interest I have never once before experienced in my life. I’ve been an adult of voting age for twelve prior presidential elections, starting in 1972 and I can honestly say that I’ve watched more candidate maneuvering for the 2020 election than I have…
The Danger of Republics If you are a bunch of people who want to band together for common purpose, you need a few things, according to sociologists. You need a legal and economic system, in addition to a political system. I think of these as the big three, but there are certainly other cultural or social systems, but with the big three you’re off to a good start. They must also be woven together in…
Wearing Your Underwear on the Outside Yesterday, an immigrant brought to this country at a toddler with his twin brother and who has spent the past twenty years as an officer and gentleman in the U.S. Army (as has his twin brother) was maliciously and wantonly accused by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee of being a disloyal possible double agent for Ukraine. Why was this accomplished and highly decorated war veteran and…
The Righteousness of Failure I watched a screener last night that my wife gets as a member of the SAG/AFTRA Nominating Committee. It’s the movie called Dark Waters starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway and I have been seeing trailers of it lately, so I was anxious to see it. It comes nineteen years after Erin Brockovich showed the world the power of class action suits against corporate polluters. This excellent new movie has a…
Cat on a Curtain A metaphor I have enjoyed using for many years is that of a cat on a curtain. We can all envisage a scared and jittery cat jumping up to cling to a sheer curtain and digging its claws into the flimsy fabric with its unsupported draping flow. It is an image of utter fear combined with a very insecure foundation of support for the wary feline. The metaphor conjures an…
The Reality of Being Demented For those of you who want to put your hands over your ears and not listen, now would be the time to do it. Donald Trump is demented and his Congressional sycophantic Republican acolytes are both enablers and at very least misguided. Yesterday was the first day of the public impeachment hearings. Starting our day at our friends’ apartment in San Francisco, and given the three hour time zone difference,…
A Confederacy of Trumpsters I’m hoping that John Kennedy Toole does not roll over in his grave with my borrowing a few words from his posthumous Pulitzer-Prize-Winning work of fiction (one of only four posthumous awards in over one hundred years). I can’t help myself with this title, it came to me tonight as I’ve been listening to the latest shenanigans of the Ukraine-based Impeachment Inquiries in the U.S. House of Representatives. Even Lindsey Graham…
Slaving Away While I am no archeologist or anthropologist, I think it’s agreed that man as we know him (homo sapiens) has existed for some 300,000 years. If we conservatively consider a generation as lasting an average of thirty years, that means there have been 10,000 generations of humans. If I stretch Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of expertise using the 10,000 Hour Rule, one might suggest that the human species should have learned a thing…
When is a Lie Not a Lie? I’m sure that some of you will LOL about this, but I really do try not to write every blog story about how outraged I am about Donald Trump and the gang of Republican lawmakers and administration cronies that continue to stand up for the man. Today the situation has yet again shifted. As the parade of credible, patriotic career diplomats and intelligence professionals gets longer and longer…