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

As I turned off the daunting news, I barely noticed the ad to financially adept persons, an ad affirming, “A life well-planned.” Not mine.  I stumbled into college as part of the prereq for going to mortuary school.  An associate degree and a Certificate in Mortuary Science later, I liked it, so I went on to get a Bachelor's in Psychology and Philosophy.  (Perhaps I disappointed the kind family at the funeral home.)  I stumbled further into graduate school, taking my interest in philosophy and…

What a time we're in, somewhere between Shakespeare and the Marks Brothers, or perhaps Orwell's "Ministry of Truth" and Colbert's "truthiness." Is this tragedy or comedy? The Nightly News brings bad news, medical complications, and warnings about taking expensive new medicines advertised by cheery people dancing in their kitchens. Do you have to be sick to have fun? Be sure to consult your health care "provider." Away from the news, we can watch numerous versions of shows that alarm us with "murder!" Even PBS hawks…