I am reading Bananas, by Peter Chapman, How the United Fruit Company shaped the world. It is a chilling tale of colonization. The colonial power was the United States in the late 1800s, the William McKinley administration, followed by Teddy Roosevelt. How we tend to view our history through rose-colored glasses, giving others and…
I am compelled to write about the picture which was on the front page of the Thursday edition of the New York Times. My thoughts will have to be held in abeyance, until I can change my password for my Godaddy account. This morning I received a email note from my friends at Godaddy. …
Life is not easy. The luster of childhood can barely be remembered. The idealism of youth has been replaced by disillusionment of Realpolitik. Therefore to avoid the dark well of nihilism I seek beauty and meaning on a day-to-day basis. The meaning of life depends in part upon me. In part, a worthwhile life…
The discussion last night dragged on for me. That is unusual. The topic was the relationship between science and wisdom. Science is an institution, and a method that yields knowledge, which defines the 20th and our own 21st century. Certainly from the comments shared among our group there is much controversy, disagreement about what…
I had a dream this morning, likely a few minutes before the alarm was to activate at 6AM. I dreamed of walking in an open field with acquaintances, possibly family. At some distance, a mile or so in the sky a big military tanker plane was making a slow turn. I’ve see such aircraft…
Email from a friend expressing feelings of revulsion at political “leadership.” I felt his pain. Feelings are like the weather. The “weather” of feelings are the swirling impact of feeling upon feeling. Feelings come and go. Feelings pass for “news” in some sectors of the media. Feelings are not news. Feelings pass for “truth”…
This morning I turned on NPR. Still dark, it was early. Barely awake, I tuned to the beginning of an interview with one of Alabama’s Congressional Representatives. This is the followup of the Presidents visit to McAllen Texas yesterday. I could not listen to the interview with the man from Alabama. The sound of…
This morning according to the NPR newscast the President is to visit the border region between our country and Mexico. I visited that part of our country once, many years ago. Traveling from Chicago to San Francisco on the California Zephyr the train stopped for about twenty minutes somewhere in New Mexico. I marveled…
Not that I have lost any hope. All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins — it never will — but that it doesn’t die. I don’t know why we should expect it to. It seems fairly…
The automobile is emblematic of America. The Model T Ford created by Henry Ford, a “modern” means of transportation affordable by the working man/woman, and the interstate highway system built by the Eisenhower Administration have defined America. As a baby-boomer I learned to love cars while in high school. The most vivid memories retained…
