With apologies to James Baldwin for appropriating his title: If people could actually “spin in their graves,” my guess is that he would be doing a very rapid rotation at this time, as would, I think, Abraham Lincoln and many others who have done their best to make the United States a better country than it has been in the past. We have taken at least one big step backwards with the recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia. I am both angry and sad that “white nationalism” is on the march, and that the Ku Klux Klan is crawling out from . . . → Read More: The Fire This Time
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 Comments are closed  Blog  Abraham Lincoln, Big Screen TVs, Charlottesville, Chinese Revolution, devolve, Donald Trump, evolve, French revolution, James Baldwin, KKK, Ku Klux Klan, lunch-counter protests, military, racial, racial violence, resentment, revolution, revolution Blacks, Russian revolution, screens, sit-ins, St. Louis, talking heads, Trump, TV, United States, video, Vietnam, Watts, white nationalism, white nationalists, zero sum game I knew that it had been a while since my last posting, but I had no idea how long it had been. John Lennon is usually given credit for saying that “life is what happens while you are making other plans,” which is included in the lyrics for Beautiful Boy, written for his son, Sean. Since my last blog, we’ve had two major holidays (Christmas and New Year’s), and more than a month has slipped away while I was busy making other plans. And shoveling snow. It is, after all, winter in Michigan…. We have had some winter weather . . . → Read More: Time Flies Comments are closed Blog Barbara Marx Hubbard, Big Enders, Catholics, changes, Christianity, Co-Creation, conflicts, corporate ethics, corporate profits, corporations, Elizabeth Kolbert, end-of-times, Evolutionary, humanity, Hundred Years War, John Lennon, Jonathan Swift, Life, life is what happens, Little Enders, military, modern technologies, New Testament, no-peeing end of the pool, North Pole, oceans, partisan divide, plastic waste, pollution, primitive concepts, profit, Protestants, resources, Sixth Extinction, snow blower, South Pole, time flies, Tom Lehrer, tribal affiliations, winter weather One of the problems with peeing in the pool (not that you would do it, of course) is that the pee goes everywhere. Humans, and perhaps other animals as well, tend to be short-sighted and do things for their own convenience. For however long humans have been on planet Earth, we have been metaphorically peeing in the pool and then moving to the other end. Whether we have finally discovered that there is no “other end” remains to be seen. The principal impetus for this blog entry is not some new information about the way humans have been damaging the . . . → Read More: Ecosystems: The “No Peeing” End of the Pool Comments are closed Blog African-Americans, Age of Aquarius, Alfred, architect, army, Blacks, California, Charleston, Cherokee, China, Civil Rights, clinical social work, college, Commissioned Officers, Computer Information Systems, construction, Department Chair, dissertation, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, English Department, environment, evening news, Executive Order, faculty, Filipino, Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, George Santayana, graduate school, historic Black church, Illinois, India, integration, JFK, John F. Kennedy, justice, karate, Lord Tennyson, Los Altos, Los Angeles, Mexican, Mexican War of Independence, Mexico, military, Nature red in tooth and claw, NCOs, Noncommissioned Officers, Okinawan Karate Academy, Oklahoma, Pakistan, peace, pee, peeing, politicians, pool, post-racial, President Truman, race, reconciliation, reparations, revolution, SC, short-sighted, Sixth Extinction, South Carolina, Spanish Conquistadors, swimming pool, Texas, Trail of Tears, University of Florida, University of Illinois, Urbana, Vietnam, war on Christians, Watts, Western Michigan University, Whites, WMU I am old enough that I had most of the childhood illnesses for which vaccines are now available. I had both kinds of measles, chicken pox, mumps, and (I believe) whooping cough. I did have a number of vaccinations as a child, including small pox, tetanus, and probably some others. In my early 20s, I was among those who took the first version of the vaccine for polio developed by Dr. Jonas Salk. When I was in the Army, all new recruits were vaccinated against everything for which vaccines were available, including plague, probably in anticipation of our being sent . . . → Read More: The Vaccine Wars Comments are closed Blog advertising, anti-vaxxers, army, bats, bees, birds, candidates for office, Catholic Church, CDC, Centers for Disease Control, chicken pox, disease management, doctors, Ebola, Galileo, GMO, guns, herbicides, ICIMED, immunization, infant mortality, ingredients, International College of Integrative Medicine, Joseph Mercola, measles, military, mumps, negative advertising, pesticides, political process, politics, Pope, quack, quack watch, smallpox, States, tanks, U.S., US, vaccinations, vaccines, vaxxers, Vietnam, whooping cough I started political life as an Eisenhower Republican. I was in the 5th grade, and one of our assignments was to study the presidential election of 1952 and choose a candidate to vote for. Eisenhower was the Republican. Stevenson was the Democrat. My parents liked Ike, so I liked Ike, too. Others in my class also aligned with their parents—understandable given our age. It is only in retrospect I can see and understand how those early influences began shaping my political philosophy. Eisenhower is remembered primarily for initiating the Interstate Highway System and for warning us against the Military-Industrial Complex. . . . → Read More: Political Realities Comments are closed Blog 1960, 5th grade, Barry Goldwater, Bernie Sanders, Big Ag, Big Banks, Big Pharma, clean energy, compromise, cooperation, cronyism, distortion of reality, doublespeak, election, fossil fuels, George Orwell, historical data, Ike, incarceration, industry, infrastructure, Interstate Highways, Kansas, Lyndon Johnson, military, Military Industrial Complex, money in politics, national debt, political left, political life, political philosophy, political right, politics, President Kennedy, prison, Progressives, Republican, Sam Brownback, size of government, taxes, U.S. Congress, Will Rogers |
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