Your Privacy: Welcome to the Fatherland!

There is something clever about fabricating fanciful drama to get a following on social media, but your privacy is a separate, more important issue. Privacy is something we are all going to have to think about. The work begun by Elon Musk and his DOGE team is rapidly moving forward to link government databases.


Building Treehouses, Sparking Wonder

Work, career, occupation, vocation – sometimes these terms are slung about interchangeably. Yet any devoted reader or wordsmith could parse the nuances each word conveys. This is the story of a fellow who had a successful, full-time career, but who also discovered and adhered to a 40+ hours-a-week vocation outside of his day job.


Now Is The Time

No matter how many column inches are written about the Trump administration to analyze its behavior, the facts do not change and they lead to an inescapable conclusion, best summarized by Bruce Springsteen on the opening night of his European tour in mid-May: “In my home, the America I love, the America I've written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.”


Is a Manchurian Candidate Guiding our Defense?

A Manchurian Candidate, as initially defined in Richard Condon's 1959 novel and the 1966 movie, is a nation’s leader controlled by that country’s enemy. These works of fiction played on the fear of a Communist takeover of America by Russia or China, a conspiracy worthy of being promoted by QAnon.    


NOTES FROM THE WORKING CLASS: The Silence of the Dutch

Among the Dutch, the artist Anselm Kiefer and the author Anne Frank, there is a connection that is found in silence. On Sunday, May 4, 2025, a two-minute period of silence brought the city of Amsterdam to a halt. The streetcars stopped running. The streets emptied. No cars, bicycles or people. Boats stayed moored on the canals. The trees across the road in Vondelpark appeared still. The sun seemed to hide behind the clouds. Life did not stir for two minutes.

The two-minute silence was meant to commemorate Liberation Day—The Netherlands’ liberation from the Nazis eighty years ago.


Global Governance: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

 We need global governance. The idea of world government is hardly new, of course.  It’s an enduring dream that can be traced back at least to Bronze Age Egypt and the ancient Chinese Emperors. In the modern era, it has been espoused by many prominent people. Both the League of Nations and the United Nations, despite their limitations, were also incremental steps in this direction.  However, in recent decades the traditional idea of a top-down world government has largely been replaced by the more complex, polycentric, democratic vision of “global governance” – a global system of limited self-governing regimes and cooperative action with respect to specific transnational problems and domains, rather than an overarching, unified, all-powerful political authority.

 


Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning

Every time I read this book I learn some nuance I had not thought of before. The thinking person or the person who chooses to think on a deeper level will always find comfort and solace from the existential pain that is inherent in the human condition.  


Connecting the Dots: Trump’s Budget – MAGA supporters – Republican Senators

Trump’s budget clearly favors certain supporters over others. It reallocates funds from health care intended for his low-income populist base to sustain tax subsidies for his wealthiest backers. As Trump’s populist base learns the details of his “Big Beautiful Budget,” Republican members of Congress will face consequences.