Thom Hartmann The routines in my retirement often include listening to Thom Hartmann, a provocative and insightful commentator based in Portland. While folding clothes or chopping bell peppers, I regularly listen to his show weekdays on Sirius XM channel 127, from 9 a.m. to noon. He recently posted an article explaining how German conservatives operate … Continue reading German Conservatives
In 2019, Mark Arax published the definitive work on the story of water in California, The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California. He has recently published what might be seen as a distillation of this magnificent book in an article for the MIT Technology Review. As a distillation, the most essential themes from … Continue reading Raisin Prophecies
Sam G (I like the Lord of the Rings echo here!): You have always maintained an appropriate caution in drawing parallels between the fascism that emerged in interwar Europe and similar elements in the US political landscape of the present. What emerged in the Nazi period, for example, drew from foundations deeply set in medieval … Continue reading Essential Fascism: A Response to Goodfellow
Because I am not particularly good with the technological dimensions of operating my own blog, I have been compelled to write a new post in reply to Sam Goodfellow’s thought-provoking entry, “You Say You Want a Revolution.” When I initially posted Sam’s article, I failed to post it under his authorship. As a result, those … Continue reading Response to Goodfellow
Sam Goodfellow Art Thank you, Sam, for your visual contribution. I can think of no more concise and powerful summary of everything Mary Trump had to say about her deeply disturbed Uncle Donnie. A Tennessee Whiskey to Soothe Your Soul A while ago I pledged to not drink Kentucky bourbon in a post intended to … Continue reading Another Goodfellow, Tennessee Whiskey, and Flyleece
When I retired, I looked forward to taking my citizenship duties more seriously by reading more carefully the Voter Information Guides. What follows here are the decisions I made on this year’s ballot and some effort to explain why I made the choices I did. The reason I did this was two-fold. First, I hope … Continue reading How I Voted and Why
One of the key takeaways from the revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book is that Trump is not as stupid as he makes himself out to be on television. After weeks of consulting with some of the best infectious disease experts in the world, he actually understood at a childish level how viruses are contracted … Continue reading Measuring Trump’s Covid Failure
The 1960 Miller Buccaneers, and their bus driver. By telling the story of integration as experienced in that most vital of community institutions, the local high school, Professor Jacobus has made a great contribution to the historiography of civil rights. While much of the history of civil rights has understandably focused major political, religious, and … Continue reading Black Man in the Huddle
Near the end of Joe Talbot and Rob Richert’s wondrous The Last Black Man in San Francisco, the protagonist Jimmy Fails confronts a young female Silicone Rush immigrant in a Muni bus complaining to her mother about how much she hates living there. Fails: “You don’t get to hate San Francisco. You don’t get to … Continue reading The Dreamt Land
Here are some numbers you should keep in mind the next time you hear a billionaire assert that their business cannot afford to pay a $15 minimum wage. If we take one of the $170 billion dollars that is the current projected value of Walton family's Walmart estate and project it over the course of … Continue reading $15 an hour
Etiologies 