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…
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Watergate: 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…
Continue ReadingOne hundred years of American might
When the Central Powers of Europe mobilized their armed forces in August 1914 and the Allied Powers mobilized theirs in response, it was widely believed by many on both sides that the conflict would be glorious, short-lived and decisive. Few of the pro-military interventionists gave any credibility to the prospect of a protracted, drawn out…
Continue ReadingPicking up the pieces of shattered trust
So we never thought it could happen to us. I’m sure we would all love to think that. This particular train of thought is a familiar cerebral pathway unique to many of us who, either directly or indirectly, have ever had to negotiate their way through the fallout generated by the shambles such an awful…
Continue ReadingLeftoverture at 40 still crisp by Kansas at 44
Online purchase of two tickets, four rows back from Stage Left: $216.00 Pre-concert dinner of Coneys, Frito Pie and iced tea: $8.95 The cheapest swag item and two skunky draft beers: $43.00 Taking in the sounds of one of the most iconic bands of my youth in the same venue where I paid to see…
Continue ReadingIn honor of the 44th President
As the Presidency of Barack Obama enters its final hours, I wax nostalgic and remember fondly the breath of hope his victory in 2008 gave many of us in the face of frightening national and world events. His impressive fifty state grassroots campaign for President of the United States bore the embodiment and inspiration of…
Continue ReadingFarewell 2016: Wrapping up Volume 42
As the year winds down, this is the time I tend to get introspective and wax philosophical on the record of the past twelve months which I have kept on a daily basis. When I key in my account of the final day of December 2016 this evening it will be the 366th entry of…
Continue ReadingInternalizing the new normal
Here we are facing the winter of our discontent in that ten week period between Election Day and Inauguration Day when the outgoing Presidential administration is wrapping up business and the incoming one is preparing for a successful run. Things have, with a few exceptions, cooled down. We Democrats are still licking our wounds and…
Continue ReadingI remember Pearl Harbor
I can never think about Pearl Harbor, the December 7th, 1941 attack, any book or movie about it or any story an old veteran ever told me regarding it without vividly remembering my time serving on or near that hallowed body of water and the ground surrounding it. Today, the 75th anniversary of the attack…
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