“In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his classic “Divinity School Address.” The luxury to draw the breath of life is owned by bums as much as by billionaires.  Which gets the most from their breathing?  How much do you get from yours?  Forget the angst for a minute.  Forget Trump’s assault on “We, the People” and on our clunky but partly functional constitution.  Forget his attacks on journalists, jurists, and judges.  Forget…

These old photos of our family home and me arrived from my sister, setting off a chain of ruminations and reactions on New Year's Eve, a few hours shy of 2025. Here I am on my first day of kindergarten. I vaguely remember the house on Stoepel Street in Detroit. Dad kept making the gate latch more elaborate to keep me in the yard. Mom worried when I got out, but Dad was proud I had figured out how to open it. I've been figuring…

The only ones not shocked and worried at Trump's reelection should be. A vile, lying con man has retaken the presidency, despite who he blatantly is. Those who are full of glee now will soon regret their historic blunder. Americans have been duped by a party whose philosophy is that 'government is bad for us,' which they're already enacting. It'll get worse. I'm sour and chagrinned. Just when the world should be uniting to cooperatively meet and master this long-term, self-induced climate chaos, this ecosystem…

Anxious about the election? Tired of being lied to? Concerned that our two-hundred-year-old democratic republics could abruptly end, delivered over to petty but fanatical moralists and the amoral rich? Hitler lost the battle, but are his types resurging to win the war? I'm anxious but hopeful. I'm worn out by life, my career, and trying to be a decent citizen. I will end this essay with hope, but I must first admit the danger. You'll note my leftist slant for much of this. But read…

"I'm tired of egotists. They're more interested in themselves than in me." (My favorite joke lately.) I've been keeping a file of quotes and jokes for years. Here it is for your viewing pleasure. (My apologies to readers because all the formatting to attribute authors switched from the right edge of the page to the left. Usually, the author's name follows the quote. Darn Blue Host's skimpy tools! Also discovered, two versions of my autobiography, one completed in 2012, found under Home/About the Founder, and…

"When most of the ice is gone, the seerious global warming begins." Michael Dowd