2021>>2022
It has been a year since I last posted an article to my site. That is the longest time between articles since I began posting. What a year. We finished our beach house after nearly 2 years. The constraints on labor and materials severely impacted our budget and...
2020 + WON = 2021
In this, my first article for 2021, I have to address the sadness lodged in my corpus. January 6, 2021 was an inflection point and the culmination of 48 months of incitement by DJT. His rapid fire and continuous and inciting tweets provided all of the fuel that the...
Thoughts on 2020 and beyond
As 2020 comes to a close, I thought I would make my last post of the year about this eventful and bizarre year. All of us have experienced 2020 in different ways. For me, this year has brought revelations and important moments for learning about the world around me...
Taking the long way…
When I was a kid and working on my homework, I had a habit of asking mom how to spell a word. She was adamant that I look up the word. I don't recall her ever helping me in that way. After a while I got so used to looking up the words that it became a pleasant...
This too will pass
The last several weeks have been trying ones. First we were locked down by Covid (and still are). Then came wildfires that generated millions of cubic feet of life threatening smoke, killed dozens and wiped out the homes of several 1,000 families as well as the...
Notorious RBG
Today, at 4:50PM PST I saw a news flash on my phone that Ruth Bader Ginsberg had just died. It felt like cosmic punch was thrown into my gut. Besides her lauded intellect and service to justice, I just really liked her spunk. I will not repeat all of the...
Smoke gets in your eyes (and nose, throat and clothes)
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is a show tune written by American composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for the 1933 musical Roberta. The song has these opening lyrics: Now, laughing friends deride, Tears I cannot hide. Oh-oh-oh-oh, so I smile and say, "When a...
Smoke + Mirrors
Oregon, Washington and California are experiencing wide-spread fires. This news has been reported world-wide. In Oregon, where we live, 1 million acres have burned. 40,000 residents have been evacuated and 500,000 folks have been told to get ready to evacuate. Our...
Unchained
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger stated: “It is because of an inclination toward falling (Verfallensgeneightheit) that the factical life, which is always in fact that of the individual, is not usually lived in that way.” As Wolfram Eilenberger states in his new...
Between an Orange Rock and a Heart Place
As the United States begins its rapid descent into tribal and race warfare, we must accept the inevitable end of life as we know it. That life was, after all, partially an illusion. Those of us who enjoyed the post WWII boom and benefited by our class and race are, by...
Certainly Uncertain
Since early March, I have been on a slowly evolving new relationship with myself. What started as an urgent isolation to avoid being infected by COVID-19 has become, more or less, a way of life. I suspect that it may be the new norm for a very long time. It may even...
Was #45 Necessary?
"In the time of universal deceit telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." —George Orwell In early 2016, I had a heated on-line debate with a Native American political activist from Minneapolis who was advocating that Native Americans vote for Donald Trump. He...