The Wager

I just finished a great history about an 18th century event which reverberated throughout Western culture in ways I wasn’t aware of. It’s The Wager, by David Grahm, author of Killers of the Flower Moon. The story revolves around a British warship that was part of a small expedition to

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Honoring the South

After writing this I realized some may well find me “nominating” people who owned slaves as not in keeping with rejecting slavery. It’s a fair point. For me it’s a matter of looking at the total picture of the person’s life, as best I understand it. But — more importantly

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It's About The Future

As we move into the final stages of the Trump impeachment hearings it’s worth remembering this: it’s about much more than removing him from office. Not because he doesn’t deserve being kicked to the curb; he does. But that was never really a possible outcome, given how he has taken

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Empirical Value of Not-So-Big Lies

Hitler famously opined about the value of a lie so big people would believe it because they couldn’t believe anyone would “have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”. But I’ve long suspected little lies, if repeated often enough, can have a similar effect. Turns out there may be empirical evidence

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That Make America Great Again Survey

For the first twenty one years I lived in California, starting in 1979, I was a registered Republican. Actually, I was pretty libertarian politically, not surprising in someone who came from a modest background and then started achieving some significant financial success as a result of his own efforts. We

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Earthrise

I had no idea that one of the most iconic images of the 20th Century was seen and captured on film by accident. Check out this link: https://www.youtube.com/embed/dE-vOscpiNc Borman’s quote about what he saw is famous. But when I see that image of the Earth coming over the dead lunar

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2nd Amendment Brainstorming

The latest round of gun-fueled insanity in Las Vegas has prompted, once again, calls for more rational gun control in these United States. Including by me. But it occurred to me today that draconian shifts — which is what those of us appalled by the slaughter of little kids and

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Baboon Butts

Years ago I read about an interesting aspect of baboon social behavior. The males have a variety of rituals they go through when they are trying to assert dominance…but if one male baboon moons another, it always ends up in a teeth-and-claws fight. Now, I’m not sure of the provenance

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Sacramento, Here I Come!

This is admittedly a shameless piece of self-promotion. OTOH… it’s way cool, and I’m both excited and proud to have been chosen for this role (thanx, Congresswoman Speier!). I only wish my vote would have been part of electing the first woman President of these United States. Electoral College Daily

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The Ultimate Democratic Endeavor

I read someplace that war is the ultimate democratic process, because all sides get a say in how it proceeds. I was reminded of this when glancing through a book on the Pacific theater of World War II the other day.

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