Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
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 4, 2025 – This morning, I allowed a breach of discipline to get the better of me: I read/listened to more of the latest news about President Musk than was good for my blood pressure. I’d already been stewing over reports from direct witnesses—a family member and a close friend—that the all-out assault on …
FEBRUARY 3, 2025 – The best antidote to news of more nonsense is to spend the weekend up at the cabin with your nine-year-old granddaughter. For one thing, you find yourself looking at our world—and the worlds above it—through a fresh lens. Take for example, my first glance up at the sky after we’d pulled …
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 30, 2025 – (Cont.) After covering the “three levels of learning,” Professor Stavrou turned to the study of history generally. He emphasized that before you can assess what you’re reading on the history of most anything, you need to know the historian. Who is writing? What’s their background, their perspective, their springboard, their biases …
JANUARY 29, 2025 – (Cont.) If Professor Stavrou is the consummate inquisitive scholar, he is, I think a born educator in the loftiest sense of the term. He’s neither a pedant nor a pontificator but a man intensely dedicated to intellectual integrity and the joy of learning. Given his unusually lengthy career as both a …
JANUARY 28, 2025 – One day when I was a young kid, my sister Elsa came home from school reciting the name, Ponce de León, the explorer and conquistador who in 1513 led an expedition throughout what is now the state of Florida. Two hours later, Elsa remained enchanted by the name of the early …
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 25, 2025 – This morning I picked up on our granddaughter’s cue yesterday. I eschewed the latest news, put all woes and worries aside and plunged into a self-directed art project. Actually, it’s an arts and craft project in the form of a “gnome home,” long neglected because in theory, anyway, the longer it …
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 18, 2025 – Recently, I watched a Netflix documentary about the mind-boggling effort to build, launch and deploy James Webb. Of course, I’m not referring to the second NASA administrator by that name but the largest telescope ever built (by earthlings) and named in honor of him. The documentary reminded me of what I’ve …
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 …