One of the most enduring memories of the early adolescent years of my youth is the end of direct U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. This was heralded by the return of the first group of 591 American Prisoners of War held by North Vietnam which happened fifty years ago today. The longest held among…
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A national tale of dereliction
When we gaze into the collective mirror to see who we are as a people and to admire the reflection representative of our tribe, whatever it may be, we abhor the sight of imperfection. We so often prefer to see only what we want to see and when we do notice the presence of blemishes…
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2022 in the rearview
It has become a tradition of Yours Truly in the waning hours of the year to look back on the past twelve months. I don’t know how many individual personal record keepers incorporate this as a practice, but this is when I like to recollect and analyze where we and the World has been in…
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Recalling the emergence of the inner humanitarian
Most would agree that some personal anniversary dates carry a great deal more weight than others. Such is the case with this one. Forty-two years hence, the evening of 12 December 1980 stands out as the night I became aware that I was no longer a youth. That was when the U.S. Navy warship I…
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Thoughts on the tiny red ripple
Some of you may have heard there was a Midterm Election in America last Tuesday. As of Saturday evening, the Democrats have maintained their control of the U.S. Senate and there remain a handful of U.S. House races the votes of which are still being counted. Although due to those uncalled races in which nothing…
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The long road back to the middle
Chief among the pitfalls and problems that beset the politics of fear and grievance is the physical fatigue and mental exhaustion the perpetuation of it generates. The level of outrage required to keep the members of a core political base frightened and angry consumes a great deal of energy especially since it must be manufactured…
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On our way to another Oklahoma City
Oklahoma, the home state of Yours Truly, is endowed with an embarrassment of riches like none other in the Union. It is a place of natural beauty and mineral resources inhabited by people with a can-do industrious spirit who represent a very colorful tapestry of multiple cultures, lifestyles and faiths. As a hub of trade,…
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Suffering the penalty of greed, excess and hubris
It has been said that the effects of alcohol when consumed to excess is its own punishment. A bad hangover may be a justly earned and fitting reward for one individual who, by choice, overindulged in drink. Fortunately for the rest of us who said “NO” to another round or to the bottle entirely, the…
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The end of the trail?
America has been a grand experiment. The very essence of its ideas were light years ahead of its time when the founders first thought them, publicly stated them and wrote them down on parchment nearly two and a half centuries ago. Democratic self-governance of a nation and nearly all that went along with it was…
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Demanding our right to not get shot
Few things set the United States apart from other nations like the Second Amendment. We may search high and low among other industrialized nations and not find anything in any other constitution that has had as many judicial interpretations guaranteeing any citizen the inalienable right to arm themselves with weapons intended for use only in…
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