Evolution, be it that of a living organism, a nation’s identity or an individual person’s character, is a fascinating process. I am perhaps a little biased and maybe outright unrealistic when it comes to the evolution of a person’s character. I would really love to believe that just because an average soul such as myself…
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Rules 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…
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Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes
One impressive characteristic of this World we all have inherited is that whatever mortal men and women can poison or destroy through calculated intent or ignorant neglect can be totally finished off in a short span of time by natural occurring phenomena. Forget for a moment the ineptitude of our elected leadership and their desire…
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Book Review: Giant of the Senate by Al Franken
Alan Stuart Franken, a talented and smooth spoken Harvard educated 60-something, has spent a lifetime riding a unique mix of humor and irony to celebrity and a good living . Most of us late night insomniac TV watchers remember his start as one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live in 1975, a gig…
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A 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…
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Slowing down the forced march backwards
What a week it has been in *President Trump’s America. Is anyone tired of winning yet? Never before in my lifetime have I seen a chief executive of any organization let alone the defacto leader of the free world (a position which the United States is apparently abdicating) so self-absorbed by the fact he won…
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Repeal of Affordable Care Act is failing!
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka The Affordable Care Act will remain the law of land after the primary legislative aim of the GOP-controlled Congress to repeal it failed to gain enough support for passage in the U.S. Senate on Monday evening. President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law in March of…
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And so the Oklahoma Blue Wave begins
When the 56th Legislature of the State of Oklahoma was sworn in back in January, the Republicans occupied 75 of 101 seats in the House and 42 of 48 seats in the Senate. Since the swearing in of the state’s lawmakers, there have been six Republicans that have had to resign their seat under the…
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Does the end justify the means?
We are now 160 or so days into the Trump era and I have been watching and listening in mostly silent and at times stunned amazement at how the polarized factions of the American nation are evolving. I must say I am not surprised by most of what has been attempted by the GOP-controlled Congress. …
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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…
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