Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JULY 9, 2021 – If I were an adversary of the United States, I’d be salivating over our current internal demise. Our self-destruction requires of our enemies, no outlandish military expenditure, no high-risk/low-probability-of-success sabotage, no complex of computer hackers, no advanced planning and expenditure of any kind; simply enough Americans—not even a majority—to believe their …
JUNE 27, 2021 – On Saturday we took friends on a cruise aboard our pontoon. We “steamed” across the lake, then putted along the “Barbary Coast” before heading for the islands in the southwest corner. As we passed by the small, public campsite on the south end of Observation Island, we saw two large tents …
JUNE 22, 2021 – Back in eighth grade algebra, to pass a test with 100 problems you had to score at least 61. To ace the test you had to hit 90 or above. Seventy to 79 got you a “C,” meaning your grasp of concepts was sketchy—putting at risk your entire GPA and life’s …
JUNE 21, 2021 – Yesterday we returned from a quiet, pleasant weekend at the Red Cabin, surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature. Our time up there always has a calming effect and helps put the noise and nonsense of “civilization” into perspective. Soon after arriving home, however, we returned to Alice in Wonderland—first …
JUNE 19, 2021 – Don’t tread on me . . . with your gun fetish. Hunt all you want (with your registered rifle and firearm safety classes) and skeet shoot until you drop (likewise, with a registered firearm and adequate instruction), but don’t think that because you’re obsessed with your “right to bear arms,” I’m …
MAY 28, 2021 – Historically, the power of political leaders emanates from the people who are subject to that power, voluntarily or involuntarily. Lust and fear, meanwhile, are the central ingredients in the relationship between the governed and those who govern. In a dictatorship, fear runs two ways. The dictator who lusts for power fears …
MAY 26, 2021 – Recently, the QAnon Congresswoman caught flak for what was deemed an anti-Semitic remark—comparing public health measures to Holocaust savagery. I see it differently. Comparing the face mask rule with the Holocaust lacks the cogency necessary for placement on the broad scale of anti-Semitism—from insidiously subtle to outrageously overt. Congressional Dems and …
MAY 24, 2021 – One of my made-up maxims (page 47 of my imaginary book, Eric’s Adages) is this: To give a statistic meaning, you need to give it company. Whether the context is economics, demographics, or scientific research, to understand a figure, a number, a data point, you need to have a reference point—often …
MAY 21, 2021 – If you’ve been following even sporadically the Republican election “audit” in Maricopa County, Arizona or the Republican Congressional denial of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, you’ve been following nonsense. Any human experienced in reality knows that the foregoing examples of unreality are just that—nonsense. But behind the nonsense lies …
MAY 13, 2021 – The notion of a citizen-army or a citizen-government seems so right, so Norman Rockwellian. Why shouldn’t the gentleman farmer become a general, then president? Why shouldn’t a self-educated log-splitter become president—without first being a general? . . . And why shouldn’t a 29-year-old wait person from Queens—or a Q-Anon kook from …
MAY 11, 2021 – Lately I’ve been reading about the English Civil War. Through a modern lens, that episode offends modern sensibilities. Then I catch myself. Returning to the present, I check my newsfeed and wonder: Who’d be more shocked and awed—a person from England in 1649 (the year the king lost his head) viewing …
MAY 5, 2021 – Anyone who’s been following the news lately knows that the Republican Party is about to hang one of its own—Liz Cheney, Chairperson of the House Republican Conference. I’m speaking figuratively, of course, though the images of January 9 still haunt my thoughts. Somehow, I think the crazies who chanted “Hang Mike …
MAY 1, 2021 – Today, “May Day” (not to be confused with the pilot’s distress call, derived from “m’aidez!”), is when you were supposed to hang a homemade May basket, filled with candy, on the outside door handle of your girlfriend’s house, hit the doorbell, and run as the girl chased you down for a …
APRIL 29, 2021 – In his first 100 days as president, Biden’s proving to be more than a caretaker just bidin’ time. He’s an activist president with an ambitious policy agenda. So far, the wind’s been at his back, but given the clown act he follows, “looking good”—or at least “normal”—is a low threshold. I …
APRIL 26, 2021 – Besides “fixing” the electoral system, Republicans want to “fix” school curricula critical of American history. Both initiatives are inherently racist—the former because its intended effect is suppression of Democratic Black voters; the latter because it seeks to downplay our record of racial injustice. Republicans say it’s “unpatriotic” to criticize our history—a …
APRIL 16, 2021 – Yesterday I watched the clip of Dr. Fauci’s exchange with Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH). My skepticism about our national beliefs crystalized into acute fear. After centuries in the making, our country has come down to this—a debate between crass wrestling coach vs. erudite science teacher. The wrestling coach is no stranger …
MARCH 27, 2021 – Current Republican efforts to adopt voter suppression legislation is a sweeping solution in search of a non-existent problem. Actually, it’s a white, racist solution to the white, racist problem of demographic decline. “If dark people, who go Democratic overwhelmingly, vote in droves,” say Republican strategists, “we gotta stop ’em.” The solution: …
MARCH 2, 2021 – Yesterday, while walking home from my skiing, I pondered material for today’s post. A fertile patch: news items I’d scrolled through an hour before, just before heading out the door. One story in particular was Sunday’s CPAC appearance by you-know-who and a statement by South Dakota Governor Noem that “We aren’t …
FEBRUARY 17, 2021 – Last December I watched a Russian TV series entitled Zhukov, the famous Red Army general who led Soviet forces to victory in WW II. Everything about the (Star Media) production—except the subtitling—was superb. (With a little imagination an Anglophone can interpret the fractured English.) Casting, acting, direction, cinematography, soundtrack—including whole-cloth musical …
FEBRUARY 16, 2021 – I have a dream that one day, every white person I’ve heard decry urban violence attributed to “Black Lives Matter” will read Taylor Branch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Parting the Waters – America in the King Years 1954-63. Yesterday I read the 63-page chapter, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott,” a detailed account of the …
FEBRUARY 14, 2021 – During a break in the impeachment trial, I received a call from Jeff Klenk, a close college friend of mine. We’d both been observing the proceedings closely and talked earnestly about them. As a government major during our undergraduate days, and ever since, as a serious student of political science, Jeff …
FEBRUARY 13, 2021 – After watching three days of the impeachment trial, I needed to reduce the process to a its procedural and substantive essence. Impeachment is a purely political process, not a legal one. The right to impeach resides exclusively with the House, and the Senate alone holds the right to “try” and “convict” …
FEBRUARY 12, 2021 – Yesterday afternoon I took a personal biz call I’ll call “Mark.” It started off cordially with his, “How ya doin’?” This simple question was a match aflame. The fuse: my response, “I’ve been watching the impeachment trial.” Match to fuse: my question, “Have you watched any of it?” When Mark said, …
FEBRUARY 11, 2021 – If on Tuesday House impeachment managers laid down the law, yesterday they presented an open-and-shut evidentiary case. As top-gun trial lawyers, managers connected the dots to prove irrefutably the direct link between Trump’s mouth and the mob attack on the capitol. As the evidence unfolded, I realized how close democracy’s death …
FEBRUARY 10, 2021 – I’ll not forget yesterday’s opening of Trump’s second impeachment trial. Managers Jamie Raskin (MD), Joe Neguse (CO), and David Cicilline (RI) exhibited what’s best about our representative democracy. These genuine, well-grounded, well-educated spokesmen for accountability gave us all—irrespective of political persuasion—hope that perhaps the nation can save itself. As to the …