As I have often mused while waxing nostalgic, the more things change the more they stay the same. As a child, I remember asking certain of my elders what they thought of what we were seeing on the evening news only to be dismissed by categorical proclamations that the World and the nation were “Going…
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Witness to a movement: Marching for their lives
Power concedes nothing without demand. Those in government who currently wield the power of crafting legislation and have done nothing in the face of the crisis generated by mass school shootings were served notice on Saturday. A genuine grassroots movement is on the rise and their collective voices demanding action to reign in gun violence…
Continue ReadingUSS Pueblo Incident + 50: An unresolved issue with North Korea
The more things change the more they stay the same. That particular aphorism may be wearing pretty thin of late but it sure fits this particular anniversary. Members of the “below 50” demographic may remember reading or hearing about it in the Cold War chapter of a high school U.S. History course. Yours Truly was…
Continue ReadingEndings, beginnings, aspirations and expectations
This week as I transitioned into living in 2018, I experienced a deep and visceral sensation that I am sitting stationary on a huge existential conveyor belt being slowly but forever pulled forward on a great master timeline. So many times in my life the month of January has been one of endings and beginnings,…
Continue ReadingFinishing Volume 43 and reflecting on 2017
As the current year’s final hours tick by, I wax nostalgic about the binder full of daily entries I have compiled since January 1st. The December 31st entry will bear the cataloged number of 43-365 and will mark the end of my 43rd volume of daily records, a personal activity which I began in the…
Continue ReadingMovie review: Darkest Hour
“Never, never, never give up!”—–Sir Winston Churchill I recall reading a fair amount about Winston Churchill in my secondary and post secondary history courses but most of the information contained in the required readings dealt more with his statesman’s acts as Britain’s Prime Minister and his dealings with Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. I do not…
Continue ReadingRules of self-governance at age 230
Happy Constitution Day to all my friends, lovers of reason and readers of this humble blog. It was the product of several months of intense negotiation between delegates representing wide and varied common and opposing interests but it was on this day exactly two hundred and thirty years ago which was a Monday that the…
Continue ReadingA moral and humanitarian failure of leadership
What benefits any person, group or nation to gain all the material wealth in the known universe but to ultimately lose the very essence of the core of their own soul? That is one existential question which Yours Truly has been forced by public statements and actions (or lack thereof) made by certain government officials…
Continue ReadingWatergate: An enduring memory of my youth
All democracy is a work in progress. For better or worse and despite being under constant threat of compromise since its founding, the grand American experiment has met the demands and overcome multiple imposed stresses as well as all manner of intense strain up to and including civil war. In my lifetime that radical idea…
Continue ReadingRespect for the butcher’s bill
Of all the federally observed holidays on the American calendar, the one slated for the last Monday in May has for me always been the most somber and sobering. I’m sure most people who have sustained the loss of a loved one regardless if their lives ended on active duty in the armed forces or…
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