Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
FEBRUARY 12, 2025 – (Cont.) Now comes the third piece contributing to my “crisis of perception”: the Grand Dismantling of American government—conducted at breakneck speed with chainsaws and giant meat cleavers. The process is too deep, too broad, however, to examine fully in real time—or on this blog site. My readers—left, right and center—know the …
FEBRUARY 11, 2025 – (Cont.) Better than a year ago I expressed concern about how Trump 2.0 might unfold very differently from Trump 1.0. The latter was a clown circus starring Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, Don Jr., Eric and others, not to mention the Charlatan in Chief himself, along with dark wingmen such as Steve …
FEBRUARY 10, 2025 – (Cont.) In a nutshell, Zinn’s thesis of American history is that its essence and inevitable outcome turn on a tight combination of three inescapable determinants: (a) Whiteness, (b) male dominance, and (c) property ownership. Of course, there are layers to each of these elements and a host of influences beyond them, …
FEBRUARY 9, 2025 – (Cont.) First, let’s take those first 150 pages of the 680-page history tome. The book is A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I’m positive that several of my readers have read all 680 pages of it; that additional readers know of the book and are generally familiar …
FEBRUARY 8, 2025 – Not to be overly dramatic, but for the second time in my life I’m experiencing what I’d characterize as a “personal crisis of perception.” That’s a rather vague description, I realize, for what could be cast more definitively as a “worldview crisis” or “big picture crisis.” In any event, my first …
FEBRUARY 7, 2025 – The phrase “Government waste and inefficiency” was copyrighted by Republicans when their standard bearer, Ronald Reagan, arrived in Washington in January 1980. The most memorable line from his first inaugural speech was, “Government is not the solution to our problem. It is the problem.” In his popular wisdom, government was synonymous …
FEBRUARY 6, 2025 – I keep telling myself to “give it a rest”—ignore for a day or two, the scene, as it were, in Washington. To do just that, to give the news a rest, today at noon I braved 30 mile-an-hour winds to ski the front side of St. Moritz. This pursuit of a …
FEBRUARY 5, 2025 – With my fellow “radical extremist lefties” (mere “centrists” by most any gauge in previous epochs of American political history), I’m aghast but not surprised by the monarchical—make that dual monarchical or diarchical—rule that has exploded out of Washington these past three weeks. A coterie of radical extremist rightwing self-appointed disruptors have …
FEBRUARY 2, 2025 – (Cont.) Now that we’ve seen what destructive disruption we’re in for under Trump 2.0, the question, of course, is “What do we do now?” To a large extent, how that question is answered depends on where we have skin in the game. Notice, not if we have skin in the game, …
FEBRUARY 1, 2025 – (Cont.) That is, if we think we know what’s happening in the world today (under current circumstances, this means right down to the hour), what’s likely to happen in future weeks, months, even years? Since November 5, and especially since January 20, the commentators I follow and the people with whom …
JANUARY 31, 2025 – At any moment in the course of human events, every member of society faces three basic big-picture questions: What’s happening? Based on what’s happening, what’s likely to happen in the future? How can and should one try to influence and adapt to what’s likely to happen? Since Trump’s inauguration, these three …
JANUARY 27, 2025 – Each evening after I post to my blog, I spend a few minutes reviewing my FB “feeds” and “reels” feature skiing, classical music, Neil deGrasse Tyson talking physics and . . . drum roll, drum roll, barrel roll . . . airplane takeoffs and landings. Among the latter I also hear …
JANUARY 26, 2025 – Despite a concerted effort to divert myself from politics, politics tracks me down—even when I’m in a deep sleep. As I’ve previously divulged in several of my posts over the years, every night I dream up a storm. For me, sleep is like going to the movies—and I do mean plural. …
JANUARY 24, 2025 – I apologize for what’s become a work-week-long rant over politics. Don’t worry, though: as a modern member of the species, I have a short attention span. In short order another barking dog will rattle my cage, capture my fleeting thoughts and pin them down until the next wildfire, school shooting, extreme …
JANUARY 23, 2025 – When I heard Republican Senators respond to the president’s blanket pardon of the J6 violent offenders, I experienced a bizarre physiological reaction over which I had no control. It ambushed me as I stood in our kitchen, rinsing dishes headed for the dishwasher. Fortunately, I was standing over the sink, and …
JANUARY 22, 2025 – We’ve all experienced in life days of unsettled and unsettling weather, in which several decks of angry clouds sail overhead like massive fleets of warships plying the high seas. Driven on a mortal mission, they grant no reprieve from gloom and despair. At times the overhead seas darkens suddenly in portent …
JANUARY 21, 2025 – Now that yesterday’s nightmare is over, I can move on with my usual routines. Except . . . It turns out that I was merely dreaming that the nightmare was over. News of Trump’s first-day fiats hit like golf ball-sized hailstones. A blanket pardon of the J6 hooligans? We knew it …
JANUARY 20, 2025 – Unlike my spouse, who this morning was in an adjoining room from me, her eyes, ears and mind riveted to the HGTV channel, I was online watching a live stream of the inauguration. When I resurfaced from immersion in two hours of shock and awe, my wife refused to hear a …
JANUARY 19, 2025 – As the world prepares for the improbable second inauguration of a flam-flam artist[1] gone so apparently legit, he garnered a majority of the popular vote for president of—get this—the United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave, domain of the eagle, and once a beacon for “[the] …
JANUARY 17, 2025 – This morning I broke with routine, laying aside my History of the World Map by Map (See 1/10/25 post). For alternative entertainment, I flipped on the TV to Morning Joe to catch the latest cable opinions targeting an audience that already subscribes to those opinions. Instead of Joe Scarborough’s usual rants, …
JANUARY 16, 2025 – We who’ve been branded as “extremist, radical, leftist Democrats” (there being no other kind of Democrats, apparently), are accustomed to drawing parallels between Germany in the 1930s and America in the 2020s. These apt comparisons are supported and amplified by a broad cast of historians and political scientists who are intimately …
JANUARY 15, 2025 – I’m happy enough with my little stash of acorns—the exact location of which I know, unlike actual squirrels, who are notorious for amnesia—not to get too worked up about all the ways and means that the mega-wealthy in our society amass, stash and leverage their grand hoards of acorns. Academically speaking, …
JANUARY 4, 2025 – (Cont.) Trotsky and his family arrived in the Bronx just as real estate development—mostly in the form of eminently affordable apartment buildings—was taking off. Thanks to extensions of cheap and easy public transportation from Manhattan, many residents of the crowded tenements of the Lower East Side who were employed in the …
DECEMBER 31, 2024 – In so many ways, personally and publicly, this year—2024—has been the year of the Yowzers, though every year has its fair share of Yowzers. On the personal front, the biggest Yowzer was our oldest son’s descent into the heart of darkness—and out again—in the heart health department. Nothing brings more intense …
DECEMBER 30, 2024 – President Jimmy Carter was such a nice guy, people said so long before he died at the ripe young age of 100. As people reflect on his exemplary life, I have a few memories of my own about him. The first was the mock Democratic Presidential Nominating Convention held at my …