American Sharia Fundamentalism is about unwavering attachment to irreducible beliefs. What is an irreducible belief? Whatever someone wants it to be to serve his purpose. And that purpose can be for the greater good or it can have a high coefficient of self-interest, usually cloaked in false righteousness. What would we define as American fundamentalism? Technically, it represents the views espoused by the Niagara Bible Conference in 1897 that tried desperately to build a wall…
The Blue Horizon Life is about setting stakes out ahead of yourself and then fooling yourself into thinking that it’s a fun game to strive towards that stake. I chose those words quite carefully because all of those elements are at play. The operative words are Setting, Ahead, Yourself, Fooling, Thinking, Fun, Game, Strive, and Towards. When I was eight-years-old I got sent west by my mother with my childless aunt and uncle in their…
Trumpster Fire The New York Times (aka Failing Fake News) has landed with both feet on Donald Trump’s neck in a big way. They have laid bare his tax record (or approximations thereof) from 1985 – 1995. The bottom line is that he was, for much of that time, THE most unprofitable individual in the United States. This Master of the Universe, self-proclaimed best of the best businessman. He wrote-off more than $1 billion…
The Pit in My Teeth Life’s a bowl of cherries and Erma Bombeck wondered if that’s so, why did she alwasys find herself in the pits. I would change that a bit (pun intended) by asking, if life’s a bowl of cherries, why do I always have the pit in my teeth? Or maybe you like a more Forrest Gump approach. Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna…
Pete Goes Berber “I have no idea what I’m doing,” Pete thought as the Air Maroc flight from JFK to Casablanca lifted off. Pete had never even had a passport before about a month ago. He had never been outside the U.S. and had only been west of the Mississippi once before. In fact, it had never occurred to him to go overseas, but when the opportunity arose, his wife Nancy and his sons…
The Best Horse The Kentucky Derby made history yesterday by taking away the winning crown from Maximum Security and awarding it to Country House. Never has such a controversy and claim of foul so upended this historic horse race. The foul claim was that on a muddy track, Maximum Security drifted outward in its lane and bumped another horse to box it out. No one thinks it was intentional by the jockey, but rather…
Changing Their Stars In 2009, as a board member of the international relief and development agency, CARE, I went with my family to India. We started in Jaipur, headed east to Agra and on to the Bay of Bengal and then north to Calcutta. We finished on the religious day of Holi in New Delhi. The entire trip was centered around visiting the CARE projects underway in those parts of India. Our job was to…
Urban Nocturne Youngtown, Arizona started the retirement community concept in 1954, the year of my birth. Sun City didn’t open until 1960, but by then, age-restricted communities meant for those who wanted to be with other retirees, were well-rooted in the sun states. That is not an official starting gun or anything, it’s just my simple handle on when thinking about how to retire came into vogue. It’s like saying pensions began after WWII when…
Up on the Roof The sun was shining on Fayette Street. On the street it came in dappled pieces of sunlight through the leafy cover of the elms that lined the street. But Karen had opened her bedroom window and gone out on the roof of her mother’s house as had been her habit for many years. Ithaca was not Tampa, but as they say, even the sun shines on a dog’s ass some days,…
Steady Teddy I have a 10-inch high bust of Teddy Roosevelt that I was given as an award for something or other a few years ago at a ceremony held at Federal Hall. Federal Hall is the building at Wall and Broad Street that is thought of as the center of the capitalist universe. On the other three corners sit, 16 Wall Street, 23 Broad Street and the New York Stock Exchange building. 16 Wall…