#278 / The Guidance Out Of Darkness Act

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The "Opinion" page of The Wall Street Journal has recently suggested that we need to "Stop The Shadow Regulators." I'll let you read the entire statement, below. Online, the picture above accompanies The Journal's statement. It suggests, to me, that the "shadow regulator" that The Journal is most worried about is the person currently serving as the President of the United States. Reading the actual text of the Opinion column, though, it appears that The Journal believes that the "Shadow Regulators" most to be decried are former presidents Barack Obama and  Joe Biden. 

Here's the text of that Opinion column from the September 25, 2026, edition of the paper (click the link to read it online): 

How To Stop The Shadow Regulators 

Legislating is out of fashion in Washington, but the current Congress does have opportunities left to do some good before riding off into the midterm sunset. A big win would be reining in out-of-control shadow regulations. 

A bill in the Senate would require executive agencies to publish regulatory guidance to a single, searchable portal. The aim is to introduce more transparency to this practice as a prelude to reforming it. The measure, known as the GOOD Act, has passed the House and a Senate committee and awaits a floor vote. 

Agencies already must publish draft regulations to the Federal Register. “Guidance” is different. The term refers to the letters, advisories, online FAQs, interpretations and other administrative flotsam and jetsam that agencies generate to explain how they will interpret laws and rules. 

Guidance has become Washington’s preferred alternative to legislating or formal rule-making because it can be done with next to zero formal accountability. The letters and the rest are merely supposed to explain how agencies will use their discretion and aren’t meant to carry the force of law. But in practice few businesses or individuals are willing to challenge government guidance even when it exceeds statutory authority. 

Some of the Obama Administration’s most controversial actions were implemented via guidance such as a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education or a memo from the Secretary of Homeland Security. Examples are its guidance on the DACA program for younger illegal immigrants and to colleges on sexual harassment enforcement. 

The Biden Administration used regulatory guidance to intimidate states out of conducting audits of election procedures after 2020. This gimmick also became a mechanism for that Administration to introduce an “equity” requirement into new funding for electric-vehicle charging facilities and to change merger-review rules. 

A worrying sign is that it’s impossible to say exactly how common this form of non-regulatory regulation has become. The first Trump Administration tried to create a central register of existing guidance alongside an executive order limiting agencies’ use of the tactic. That register counted some 70,000 examples. 

The Biden Administration quickly ditched that reform in 2021. During the Biden years, guidance outstanding swelled to some 108,000 examples, according to Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. These are likely undercounts given how hard it is to pin down exactly what counts as “guidance.” The huge spending bills of recent years are invitations to more regulation-by-guidance as agencies set rules for vaguely defined new government programs. 

The Senate Guidance Out of Darkness Act [the GOOD Act] would take a first step to control this runaway regulation by creating a central portal where agencies would have to register regulatory guidance. That would tee up future deregulation because you can’t reform a mess like this until you measure it. That makes this a win for Republicans if they want one.

I personally agree that making it easier for ordinary people (the "regulated") to know what the government is doing and demanding is quite important, and while I haven't actually read the "GOOD Act," I like the idea outlined in the Opinion statement I have quoted above. While The Wall Street Journal is a "conservative" paper, and generally supports "Republican" ideas and programs, I don't think this issue of governmental secrecy is a "partisan" issue, whatsoever.

While I do think that governmental regulations should stand in the light, and not be veiled in "darkness," and thus like the idea of more regulatory transparency, I would like to advance an even more "radical" proposition. Here it is: We, the people, should be able to see, and evaluate, almost ANY information possessed by our government. 

I don't want the so-called "nuclear codes" to be published for all to see, but I do think that we can't really have anything that deserves to be called "self-government" unless "we, the people," have access to the same information that our elected representatives (including the president) and our governmental employees are using to make their decisions.  

And... just to address that "nuclear codes" issue, please do click on the link provided in the paragraph above, and notice that we are being told that, "The U.S. President has sole authority to authorize the use of U.S. nuclear weapons." 

The person currently serving as the U.S. President has said, quite recently, in a speech to the United Nations, that he is considering "annihilating" the Republic of Iran. I assume that he contemplates using nuclear weapons to do that.

So, do we agree that it makes sense for our supposedly "self-governing" people to have decided to let one person make a decision that would, quite likely, lead to nuclear war, without sharing with all of us exactly what has led that person to make that call? 

"We, the people" should be in charge. To the degree that we have, in the past, thought that it was appropriate to give power to one person (the person who happens currently to be serving as the President, whoever that is), the ability to bring down a nuclear attack upon the nation, and all of us, without ever sharing what information might make reasonable people think that this is, in fact, a good idea, we are abandoning the whole idea of "self-government."

I am not ready to do that. I hope nobody reading this blog posting thinks that "we, the people" shouldn't have the right to access the same information that our delegated representatives have, so that decisions about things like starting a nuclear war, or cutting off food stamp assistance, and any and every other decision taken in our name, is completely available to every one of us. 

To my mind, the "Guidance Out Of Darkness Act" needs to be expanded, radically, and "we, the people," should have the ability to know everything that our elected representatives (including the president) know. 

And just to be clear, I am not in agreement with any plan to "annihilate" the Republic of Iran, and I can't think of any information that could possibly convince me otherwise.

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#277 / The Parable At The End Of The Book

 

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I have written at least two blog postings focusing on Octavia Butler. She is pictured above. 

On September 17, 2023, I wrote a blog posting about Butler's book, Parable Of The Sower. If you click that link to the title, as just provided, you can read what the publisher says about that book: 

The radically speculative odyssey of a young Black woman in a post-apocalyptic America and the community she cultivates despite the horrors of climate change and social inequality.

On April 17, 2024, my blog posting was titled, "A Terrifying Warning." That blog posting also referenced Parable Of The Sower, and here is a brief excerpt (you can read the blog posting in its entirety, if you'd like to do that, by clicking the link to "A Terrifying Warning"):

As I have said before, Octavia Butler's book, The Parable of the Sower, provides us with a metaphor that we can use to understand, and to react to our real situation. 

We need to "find some friends," bond with them, person to person, in real life, and turn our attention, with those friends we find, to what we need to do, now - what we should do in a world transformed by our actions in the past. 

What should we do? What can we do? What is going to be possible for us - not waiting for someone else to tell us what to do? What do we need to do, in this world in which we now realize we are living, with the boulder rolling down the mountain? 

Find some friends. Give up your old plans, premised on the idea that things have not changed. Things have changed....

Make a new plan, friends! Do some things you haven't done before; do them with the friends you find; do some things you think will help.

Since 2024, the "terrifying warnings" we are receiving have become ever more terrifying. For instance, here is a link to a video showing the deadly flash floods that hit Nepal in August of this year. It would be hard to overstate how truly terrifying that video is.

As you may note from what I have written out, above, the phrase I most closely associate with Butler, and with her wonderful book, Parable Of The Sower, is this one - a phrase I repeat frequently in my daily blog postings: "Find Some Friends." The phrasing of that admonition, by the way, is my phrasing, not Butler's.

Well, I am happy to report that the book club to which my wife belongs has decided to read Parable Of The Sower. The group will discuss the book in one of its upcoming, monthly meetings. My wife, in anticipation, has now read the book (which she hadn't read before), and she commented to me that the ending was "sad." That was her reaction.

I am not a member of my wife's book club, so I won't be in attendance when the group discusses the book. To my mind, though, the end of the book (which closes with the full text of the "Parable Of The Sower," from the Bible) is infinitely hopeful, not "sad," at all.

Here is the parable at the end of Butler's book. See what you think (emphasis added): 

A sower went out to sow his seed:

and as he sowed, some fell by the

way side; and it was trodden down,

and the fowls of the air devoured 

it. And some fell upon a rock; and

as soon as it was sprung up, it

withered away because it lacked

moisture. And some fell among

thorns; and the thorns sprang up

with it, and choked it. And others

fell on good ground, and sprang up,

and bore fruit an hundredfold.  

Find Some Friends, I Say, And Let Us Sow Our Seeds

This is a "Sunday Sermon," I think, fit for the distressing and terrifying times in which we live.

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#276 / The Insurgency We Need

 

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At the bottom of this blog posting, I am including a complete copy of the editorial statement written by Katrina Vanden Heuvel and John Nichols, and published in the September 2026, edition of The Nation magazine. I want even non-subscribers to be able to read the editorial in its entirety, but here's the part I want particularly to highlight (emphasis added): 

Too many Democratic Party leaders in recent years have complacently mounted campaigns that address legitimate fears of Republican hegemony, yet fail to offer a bolder vision that speaks to the most powerful of all incentives to vote: hope. We’re not talking about vapid “It’ll all work out in the end” optimism or, worse yet, the dismissive “Just trust us” messaging of old-school politicians. We’re talking about a radical hope that lives can be made dramatically better by movements that recognize and embrace Patti Smith’s promise that “people have the power…to dream, to rule, to wrestle the earth from fools.” This is the prospect that FDR entertained when he dramatically expanded the Democratic coalition by proposing a New Deal that pundits dismissed as extreme—even socialistic—but that the electorate embraced as essential. This is what Barack Obama understood when he had the audacity to call a divided nation to “come together as a single American family. ‘E pluribus unum.’ Out of many, one.” And this is what the Rev. Jesse Jackson was talking about four decades ago when he pleaded for a new Democratic politics based on the idea that “if you raise up truth, it’s magnetic. It has a way of drawing people.”

Anyone who has read my daily blog postings with any regularity knows that I don't think that "voting," by itself, is what will ultimately save our system of self-government. "Self-government" means a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" - the kind of government that Abraham Lincoln talked about.

A government by the people requires that "the people," which means you and me, must be personally involved with the process of governing. The practical name for that is "politics." If we, as citizens, are not ourselves engaged in the process of choosing (and then disciplining) our elected representatives, we aren't doing what "democracy" and self-government actually require. What democracy and self-government require is more than mere "voting" once every two or four years. They require our personal involvement all year round - every year!

That said, "voting" is still key. It's central. It's the main way that most of us can, and do, engage in the process of self-government. 

It also happens to be true that we don't vote, and we won't vote, if we don't think that it makes a damn bit of difference. We will engage in "politics" only if we have a well-founded and legitimate expectation and belief that our political involvement (our vote and our other political work) will make a difference. 

Patti Smith sings, "the people have the power," as The Nation's editorial notes. But is that true? 

Well, it is true! Listen to her sing it. We do have the power. But we have to believe in our power if we're going to use it. 

One more time: Using our power is what puts us in actual charge, but we won't actually "use" the power we have unless we believe that using it will make a difference.

Therefore.....

Believe!

oooOOOooo

Insurgents Are Revitalizing the Democratic Party

To hear the DC insiders tell it, insurgent socialists and progressive firebrands are wrecking the Democratic Party. Don’t believe it. The insurgency that swept across the United States during the spring and summer of 2026, with its spike in voter turnouts and headline-grabbing primary results for young candidates who are challenging entrenched incumbents, is not, as some would have you believe, undermining the world’s oldest political party in this critical midterm-election year. The insurgency is revitalizing it. And if established party leaders don’t screw things up—by echoing Republican talking points about a “dangerous” left, or by opting for caution when the electorate is calling for action—this revitalization has the potential to build a vibrant coalition of Democratic base voters and legions of younger, more diverse, and newly registered ones. If it is sufficiently bold and innovative, strategic and inclusive, this coalition can do more than simply check and balance Donald Trump, by giving Democratic candidates and economic-populist independents control of the House and the Senate and key governorships nationwide. In the run-up to the 2028 presidential election, it can merge Democratic candidacies and movement energy into a political force capable of finally realizing the deferred dreams of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Economic Bill of Rights and the Freedom Budget for All Americans that A. Philip Randolph and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. advanced as an essential extension of the civil-rights revolution of the 1960s.

Too many Democratic Party leaders in recent years have complacently mounted campaigns that address legitimate fears of Republican hegemony, yet fail to offer a bolder vision that speaks to the most powerful of all incentives to vote: hope. We’re not talking about vapid “It’ll all work out in the end” optimism or, worse yet, the dismissive “Just trust us” messaging of old-school politicians. We’re talking about a radical hope that lives can be made dramatically better by movements that recognize and embrace Patti Smith’s promise that “people have the power…to dream, to rule, to wrestle the earth from fools.” This is the prospect that FDR entertained when he dramatically expanded the Democratic coalition by proposing a New Deal that pundits dismissed as extreme—even socialistic—but that the electorate embraced as essential. This is what Barack Obama understood when he had the audacity to call a divided nation to “come together as a single American family. ‘E pluribus unum.’ Out of many, one.” And this is what the Rev. Jesse Jackson was talking about four decades ago when he pleaded for a new Democratic politics based on the idea that “if you raise up truth, it’s magnetic. It has a way of drawing people.”

The progressive gospel that Jackson preached in his Rainbow Coalition campaigns of the 1980s, and that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders outlined in his 2016 and 2020 presidential bids, laid the groundwork for what a new generation of candidates and activists propose today. They are speaking confidently about enacting Medicare for All, taxing the rich, ending poverty, protecting immigrants, and changing our foreign policy. They are remaking American politics and policymaking—as the July vote by 103 House Democrats (including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi) to end US aid to Israel demonstrated. What Politico described as a “seismic shift” in the party and in Congress is taking place because voters all over the country are demanding a new politics.

After a trio of insurgents—Democratic Socialists of America members Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier and veteran progressive Brad Lander—swept New York’s Democratic primaries in June, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was mocked for his claim that democratic socialists with working-class economics and values-driven agendas “can get elected anywhere across this country for any position.” Less than a week later, 29-year-old DSA member Melat Kiros defeated a 15-term incumbent in a Colorado House primary. That same day, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who pledged to stand up to corporate monopolies on behalf of workers, farmers, and consumers, overcame a 30-point deficit in the polls to beat a sitting senator in the state’s primary for governor. Weiser’s win shocked the Democratic leadership and his own progressive supporters, whom he heard asking on primary night, “Can I really believe again?”

It’s not just that Democrats can believe again. They must.

The Democratic brand as it’s been defined by its congressional leaders is unpopular, even among Democrats. It doesn’t have to be that way. The party can become every bit as appealing, and electable, as it has ever been. But that won’t happen if control over its future remains in the hands of the people who spoiled the brand in the first place.

Democratic voters know that the party needs a new direction, and they are forging it by nominating candidates such as US Representative Analilia Mejia, a key aide to Sanders during his 2020 presidential bid whose February special-election victory in a suburban New Jersey district shocked commentators. “People will say that this district is not the kind of district in which a progressive or a lefty could win. But it’s not about left/right,” Mejia, the sole candidate in a crowded Democratic-primary field to call Israel’s assault on Gaza a genocide, said on election night. “It’s about right and wrong.”

By choosing candidates like Mejia, who easily won her general election, Democratic-primary voters are charting a new course. They know—better than many party leaders, it seems—that it is necessary to remake the party as a popular movement for economic, social, and racial justice, for saving the planet, and for a foreign policy that chooses human rights and diplomacy over bloated Pentagon budgets and forever wars.

That gap between the electorate and party leaders has led to this dynamic and sometimes contentious moment. Media outlets are paying attention to Democratic primaries and scrutinizing the results from Maine to California, Pennsylvania to Texas. Right-wing publications like the New York Post run articles warning about dire consequences for Democrats as a result of a “socialist takeover.” Former Clinton-administration commerce secretary William Daley—whose centrist choice for Illinois’s March Senate primary got crushed by a progressive contender—complained that “this far-left socialist, some call ‘progressive,’ part of society [is] basically trying to take over the Democratic Party.” Leaders of Third Way, the DC think tank that puts a contemporary spin on the neoliberal agenda of the old Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)—which Jackson called “Democrats for the Leisure Class”—warn that “the DSA’s radicalism makes it not a faction to be appeased; it is a movement to be opposed.”

But voters don’t see it that way. They are open to candidates—be they democratic socialists such as Pennsylvania House nominee Chris Rabb, or progressives like Minnesota Senate candidate Peggy Flanagan, or old-school economic populists like Troy Jackson in Maine and Sherrod Brown in Ohio—who break with status quo politics. That’s not surprising. Remember: Bernie Sanders represents a rural state and was the first non-Republican to win his Vermont Senate seat since the 1850s; and some of the most progressive members of Congress, such as Wisconsin’s Mark Pocan, represent urban, suburban, and rural districts. And look at the polling analyses from groups like the Center for Working-Class Politics, which remind us that “championing progressive economic policies can reverse the exodus of blue-collar voters from the party” and that “contrary to what many might expect, the working class has become both more progressive on economic issues and less conservative on social issues in recent decades.”

Instead of getting distracted by the establishment’s hand-wringing, Democrats should recognize a moment of renewal and potential. The party suffered devastating defeats in 2024, in part because of an enthusiasm gap among its core constituencies, and in greater part because of its failure to engage with the disaffected potential voters who will be essential to a robust governing coalition. Yet now it is suddenly experiencing what the CNN data analyst Harry Enten describes as a “supercharging” moment. A July Washington Post/Ipsos poll, conducted amid the hype about upheaval in the party, found that Democrats had a 10-point advantage over Republicans when it came to voter enthusiasm. That was eight points better than in 2018—the “blue wave” midterm-election year that saw seven governorships and at least 40 House seats flip to the Democrats. “And,” the Post noted, “more than seven in 10 Democrats say it is ‘more important’ to vote in 2026 than in previous midterm elections, compared with just over half of Republicans.” Of course, voters are eager to cast ballots against Republicans who back Trump, but they’re also eager to cast them for a bolder, better Democratic Party.

Jesse Jackson saw this moment coming. “If we lift up a program to feed the hungry, they’ll come running. If we lift up a program to study war no more, our youth will come running,” he declared as he sought to forge a new Democratic politics. “If we lift up a program to put America back to work, and an alternative to welfare and despair, they will come working.”

In 1984, Jackson surmised that the people have the power to change a party and a nation. In 2026, a new Democratic coalition—fueled by the energy of a dynamic multiracial, multiethnic progressive insurgency—can prove him right.

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#275 / Secrecy Against The People

 

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Americans have come to accept the idea that our government should be allowed to have lots of secrets - secrets from all of us, citizens of the United States of America, who are, supposedly, actually in charge of the government. 

How can we citizens actually be "in charge" of a government that decides that it will make its operations "secret"? 

Answer: we can't!

This problem was extensively discussed in that book by Daniel Ellsberg that I have commented on a couple of times in these blog postings. Here's a link to my last blog posting on the Ellsberg book, Truth And Consequence. 

The secrets that Ellsberg was most concerned about were the secret plans of the United States Government to initiate a nuclear war that would end up killing about 600,000,000 people, and that would, probably, bring on a "Nuclear Winter" that would kill a lot more (and maybe everybody on the planet). Ellsberg did not share those nuclear war plans in his book, but he indicated that he knew what they said, and that he was not sanguine about the future of humanity, precisely because he knew about those plans.

Well, here's a story about government secrecy that is a lot less threatening than the secrets that Ellsberg was talking about. I am speaking of the revelation that a CIA agent, David Rush, was able to conceal the fact that he stole "more than 600 pounds of gold bars, together with more than $2 million in cash and dozens of Rolexes and other luxury watches." You can read all about this in a story in the June 17, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal. The story is titled, "A $40 Million Gold Heist Risks Exposing CIA’s Top-Secret Spy Programs."

Are we, the self-governing people that we profess to be, ready to stop allowing people who (supposedly) work for us to decide that they can hide the government activities that they are undertaking, and that they think should be secret?

I am raising my hand! Considering the challenges ahead, I think that everyone in the world would be better off if we all knew about whatever those government secrets are that the people who are (supposedly) working for us think we shouldn't get to know about!

Think about this. Making all government information available to the people, as a matter of right, is actually a really "radical" idea. Just about as radical as the idea that ordinary people should be in charge of the government, instead of subject to it!

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#274 / The Volunteers Are Coming!

 

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As a member of the Sierra Club, I regularly receive a hardcopy version of its quarterly magazine, Sierra. If you click this link, you should be able to access the Fall 2026 edition of the magazine in its digital format. I particularly liked an article that begins on page 35, entitled "The Support Group." The article is by Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan, who begins the article with this personal recollection: 

If we avoid that "most odious pronoun" that I have written about, and stop thinking only in individualistic terms, we will recognize that we have much to do in this country, and not enough people to do what needs to be done. Not in terms of those who are paid full time wages, anyway. Environmental restoration work is one category of work that the article brings to mind. There are lots of others, too. Childcare. Senior Care. Education. Various municipal services. 

What if we organized ourselves to make it possible for "volunteers," to do much of what needs to be done? Elizabeth Kwak-Heffernan's article made me think that this could work. I hope anyone reading this blog posting will go on to read her article, to see if they might agree. 

That "volunteers" could actually accomplish many things that we need to do, and that we're not doing now, is really a hopeful thought, and Jesse Jackson's admonition rings true to me. Let's "Keep Hope Alive." 

We face an incredible number of daunting challenges - and we have so many incredibly positive opportunities, too. Let's think about how we can create and sustain the kind of "Support Groups" that are helping to protect and preserve our public lands, and expand our idea about what we can, collectively, achieve. 

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#273 / To Be Or Not To Be

  

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Connor Lounsbury is a Democratic media consultant. Before that, though, he was an actor. In an opinion column that ran in the August 26, 2026, edition of The New York Times, Lounsbury says that "Democrats Need To Learn How To Act." That is the hardcopy version of the headline on his column. Online, Lounsbury's thoughts are described by the following headline: "Great Actors Are More Believable Than Democrats." Jon Ossoff and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, pictured above, are Democratic candidates who get Lounsbury's seal of approval. They've both got "presence," he says, which is the most important thing. 

Here's the quote from Lounsbury's column that has stimulated my blog posting today (emphasis added): 

Democrats’ debates about messaging and ideology are our beautiful lies — not because they are false but because they allow us to avoid our real problems. We are focused on the symptoms of apathy, not the apathy itself. When Hamlet asks, “To be, or not to be?” he is deciding whether to take action in spite of his suffering or check out entirely. It’s the same choice Democrats face today.

You can read the entirety of Lounsbury's column if you'd like to hear what he has to say about Democratic Party politics at this critical time in our national history. I'd like to comment on the more "existential question" posed by Shakespeare (you know, "to be, or not to be?"). As the quote above should make clear, Lounsbury thinks that question is pertinent to us all, right now, and I do, too.

I am not saying that typical partisan politics is not important, though I'm not a big "party" guy. What I am saying is that the question facing the nation, and facing all of us, who are supposedly in charge, is whether we will be "actors" in the sense of "taking action," or whether we will be "spectators," who don't believe ourselves to be "on stage," but rather identify with the audience, sitting in their comfortable, or perhaps not so comfortable, seats.

"To be, or not to be" is the true and existential question that faces us all, as we contemplate our lives, and as we determine what our lives mean, and what role we have in our own lives, with the basic and binary choice already described. Are we "actors" or "spectators"? As Shakespeare puts it in Hamlet, we do need to make a fundamental choice and decision about just that question: 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.

So, what is it going to be, friends? Are we just going to get up each day to face those "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," as we contemplate the latest actions of our current president, and his largely incompetent cronies, or are we going to "take up arms" (meaning getting personally engaged in the struggle)? 

There is no doubt what's needed - and particularly if we want to side with Abraham Lincoln, and make sure that a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" does not "perish from this earth."

"Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." That's the way our Declaration of Independence puts it. Our money, our time, and all our lives. That is what is at stake. That is what we need to put out there, on the table, if we want to preserve self-government in the United States of America.  That's the kind of "acting" we need, and there is enough time for your action, and mine, to make a difference, before November 3rd!

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#272 / Megan Fluke: On Target

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Megan Fluke, pictured above, is one of my "Facebook Friends." She was a nonprofit Executive Director and worked in both the nonprofit and public sectors for over twenty years. I know her best as the past Executive Director of Green Foothills. Now, Megan provides nonprofits and public agencies with consulting, coaching, facilitation, and mediation. Here is one of Megan's recent Facebook postings, which I saw on June 17, 2026 (emphasis added): 

For a long time, I thought being authentic meant being unfiltered. 

Raw. Telling it like it is.  

That definition left me constantly at war with myself. 

If raw = real, then who was I when I was thoughtful? Polished? More curated? Was the professional version of me a performance? Was the tired, unguarded version the truth? 

I didn't know who the "real me" actually was. 

Then my coach said something that changed everything: "Author and authenticity come from the same root word. You. Get. To. Create. Who. You. Are." 

Authenticity isn't about letting whatever happens, happen. It's about being the originator of yourself. Choosing your values. Tending your character. Deciding how you want to show up. 

That's a very different thing than just being unfiltered. 

I've stopped trying to figure out who the "real me" is — and started making choices about who I want to be.... 

What are you writing in the book of you today?

This is very good advice. It is, I think, actually the same advice that I have been providing in many of my daily blog postings since 2010. To know what's "real," what "is," we must understand that our basic role is not to "observe." Rather, our role is to "act." 

That principle also applies when we consider ourselves, and wonder who we really "are." There may be a temptation to think that we might be able to discover who "we are" by self-observation, but Megan Fluke tells us otherwise. The "authentic" me (or you) is the me, or you, we choose to be. We are the "authors" of our own selves. The same thing is true when we want to know what "reality" actually is. We are the authors of the "Political World" which we share with everyone else, and in which we most immediately reside. 

I am not saying that self-observation is not valuable or important. It is! But as to who we "are," we find out who we are by deciding what to do - by acting, not by looking in the mirror (either a "real" mirror, on our wall, or the "metaphorical mirror" that we so often consult as if we discovered ourselves by reflection).  That's what Megan Fluke is talking about, and she is right on target!

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#271 / Achieving "Enduring Power"

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Adam Jentleson is an American writer, political commentator, and former chief of staff to United States Senator John Fetterman. Some will undoubtedly find his past connection to Senator Fetterman a bit problematic. Fetterman does not always get rave reviews, as those who specialize in political analysis evaluate how Fetterman conducts himself in office. Of course, the fact that Jentleson is now a "former" staff member may indicate that he has intentionally disassociated himself from the Senator. 

I am commenting on a New York Times column by Jentleson, which appeared online on August 19, 2026. Clicking that link should let you read Jentleson's column in its entirety. 

I read The Times in its hardcopy version (as deposited, daily, right on my front lawn), and the headline in the hardcopy version reads this way: "How Democrats Can Achieve Enduring Power." When you click the link I have provided, you will get Jentleson's suggestions on that topic, but they will come under a different headline. You will also find that the online version of what Jentleson has to say does not mention Jentleson's former association with Fetterman. The hardcopy version makes this association clear, right upfront. 

Jentleson is not writing to American citizens. He is writing to provide political advice to "Democrats," and his claim is that Democrats need to "expand into red territory... [and to] build a supermajority." 

Anyone who reads these blog postings of mine with any regularity will know that I do not think we should think about our politics as "Red" versus "Blue," and "Republican" versus "Democrat." I also don't think that it's a good idea to define political success by way of putting one party into "enduring power." I stress "self-government," not partisan control, as the key to the kind of politics that we should all be shooting for. It's just not true that "Democrats" are always better than "Republicans," and that our politics will get better if we can just find a way to give "Democrats" the "enduring power" that Jentleson is calling for.

It's true, of course, that our current president has mobilized partisan control by the Republican Party into support for an autocratic government that disregards the idea that it is our elected representatives in Congress who should be deciding what the law is, as opposed to letting our elected president effectually rule autocratically, under the banner that "I, alone, can fix it." 

It is also absolutely true, in my opinion, that our upcoming elections provide an opportunity to reverse the incipient autocracy that will otherwise continue, and continue to grow, absent changes in the composition of the United States Congress. "Vote Democratic" is definitely a good idea, right now; that's my personal belief.

However, let's not say, "hip, hip, hooray" for "enduring power" for the political party that offers us a potential change from the current situation. 

Enduring power? That belongs to "the people," not to "the party," whichever color that party comes cloaked in. 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/opinion/democrats-midterms-supermajority.html

# 270 / Finding An Antidote

  

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Older people have often been relieved of any requirement that they show up for a daily work assignment, or otherwise deal with any regular obligation of any kind (this blog posting might well be considered a self-report).

Here's how it often goes for those "older people." They day dawns. The day goes on. The day disappears - and it's not exactly clear what has been accomplished during the interim. Those who find themselves in this situation may start feeling like they're sitting in a movie and are just waiting around for the final credits (again, this might actually be considered a self-report). The movie may not even seem very compelling or interesting, either. 

When such feelings wash over me, I remember that there is a name for this condition, acedia (also called "sloth"), which is traditionally reckoned as a "deadly sin." I have found a kind of antidote in something I learned in my youth. It is intended to displace those "The End" thoughts by providing a different statement about the reality of our condition. I don't remember knowing the name, way back then (it is called the Gloria Patri), but I definitely remember the words: 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son:
And to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
World without end.
Amen.

As I say, I did learn this in my youth (as a regular, if young, parishioner at All Saints Episcopal Church, in Palo Alto, California). 

Here's what a Quaker might say about the Gloria Patri, in that kind of "Quakerly" language that non-Quakers may have heard about: 

This "Speaks To My Condition"

I am hoping that you will remember and call upon the Gloria Patri if there is any chance that it might speak to yours!

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https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/movie-theatre-with-the-end-text-on-white-screen-red-curtains-and-chairs-gm675942300-124127767

#269 / Four On The Floor

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António Guterres, pictured above, is the Secretary General of the United Nations. Guterres delivered his final address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday morning, September 22nd, laying out the perils the world faces and urging leaders to reverse course before it is too late.

Guterres issued "a blunt assessment of the state of global affairs, warning of the need to deal with urgent challenges at a time when the divisions between nations only seem to be growing." While he didn't use the terminology I have employed in my title (that phrasing usually referring to "a four-speed manual transmission for an automobile, having the gearshift set into the floor"), Guterres did identify "four great tests of power," and essentially put those four "tests" on the floor for discussion. The "four great tests of power" that Guterres identified are the following: 

(1) The power over war and peace. 

(2) The power that concentrates wealth and drives inequality. 

(3) The power fueling climate chaos and the war on nature. 

(4) The power unleashed by artificial intelligence.

I think that Guterres' list is an accurate statement of the major tests now facing the world, and facing each and every nation in the world, our own nation most particularly. 

In the same edition of The New York Times that carried the article on Guterres' speech to the U.N. General Assembly, a headline informed readers that our current president is now threatening to "annihilate" Iran. As The Times noted, this threat (representing no decision whatsoever by our elected representatives in Congress) was "a jarring departure in a forum devoted to world peace."

Speaking of "power," who has the power to prevent an action by our current president that would, quite likely and predictably, lead to a nuclear war killing hundreds of millions of people (including in the United States)?

Well, for the last 250 years, it has been the position of the people of the United States of America that "we, the people," are in charge of our government. 

The upcoming November election will provide us a chance to prove that this continues to be true, and to change direction, since the Constitution is clear that it is the Congress that should be telling our current president what to do, not the opposite. The current crop of elected representatives have chosen to stand back, and allow the autocratic claims of our current president to be carried forward as if they were actually national decisions, in which we, the people, were deciding to infuriate other nations, upset the economy, degrade the environment, and allow A.I. to careen ahead to some very unpredictable, and potentially world-ending conclusion.

The "four great tests of power" identified by the Secretary General of the United Nations are what our "politics," here in the United States, should be all about. The nation will fail the tests - every one of them critically important - unless we, the people, regain control over the policies that guide our nation, and that will determine whether or not we live or die. 

Right now, it's a close call. Whatever time you have to give, now is the time to give it to those four questions on the floor, the challenges to which we must respond. We are not just "observers," able only to watch what's happening. We can, each one of us, individually, change our normal lives and mobilize our nation to decide for peace, not war, and for an economy that provides enough for everyone, not outsized rewards for those in the "billionaire class." We can stop the assaults on our natural environment, and eliminate the greenhouse gases that are plunging the world entire into a climate crisis that can (really) end human civilization. We can stop the headlong experiment in replacing human intelligence with "artificial," machine intelligence, which also poses world-ending dangers. 

There they are; I have listed them again: Four on the Floor. These four challenges have been put before us, for discussion and subsequent action. Our actions, our political decisions, will determine what happens next.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/world/un-leader-uses-final-speech-to-issue-stark-warning.html

#268 / There Is No Immortality

   

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Not that long ago, I posed this question: "Do You Want To Live To Be 100?" If that sounds pretty good to you, you might want to click the article I am linking here, authored by Anemona Hartocollis, and find out about someone who (seriously) has been trying to live to be 150. That someone is Bryan Johnson  (who is pictured above). Johnson is an American venture capitalist and entrepreneur - and one of those all-around "rich guys" who - as we increasingly understand - believe that they should be running the world. Johnson is categorized as a "longevity guru" by The New York Times, and is sometimes known as a "biohacker" or as a "longevity bro." He also does "healthmaxing." Like I say, read all about it in The Times.

Today, September 25th, is my father's birthday. My Dad was born in 1914, and if he were still alive, today, he would be 112 years old. If he were going to live to be 150 years old, he would not only still be alive, he would not be slated to depart us until 2064, another thirty-eight years from now. 

I will be eighty-three, this year, and I am not figuring that I will be around in 2064 - the year that I would turn 121, were I then still alive. You can click that link to "Do You Want To Live To Be 100?" if you'd like to get my perspective on this idea that people should be trying to live "forever," which is the essence of what people like Johnson are trying to achieve. 

Johnson has apparently run into some health problems, and a report on these is outlined in The Times' article, published on August 21st. The article ends up this way (emphasis added): 

Mr. Johnson believes that his so-called healthmaxxing is a positive, not a negative. 

“If anything, I am extremely grateful that I’ve spent the past five years working on my health,” he said. “Had I not been taking care of my health with such meticulousness, it’s possible my diagnosis would be a lot worse.” 

Besides, he said, his vigilance is not only for himself, but for the good of humanity. 

Mr. Johnson shrugged away his earlier X post suggesting that he had maybe taken “the whole longevity thing too far.” 

“I was making fun of myself,” he said. “My humor is — I’m deadpan, I’m ironic, and I’m absurd.” 

Still, could there be a grain of truth to his regrets? 

“If there is, it’s subconscious,” he insisted. 

In hindsight, he said that he was surprised his team of medical experts had not found more to worry about. 

“When you measure, you find stuff,” he said. 

That answer hints at another truth: When you focus all your energy on staying alive, you have very little time to actually live. 

I thought of my 98-year old mother [Hartocollis tells us]: “There is one essential truth” .... as she used to say in Greek, quoting a popular song of the 1980s, “There is no immortality.”

I'd award "point, game, match" to Anemona Hartocollis' mother! We are trying to fool ourselves if we think we can assert any effective dominion over the future, while the past keeps slipping away from us. And it is slipping away from us, you know! Take it from one of those "old guys" who has some direct experience on this topic. We can't "live forever," but what we can do is to live our life "right now." 

And life is grand, too. Right now! Ain't that the truth? 

My father thought so; I am very sure of that!

Which brings me to my last word on this topic: Like Father Like Son!

Philips B. Patton (1914 - 2002)

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/us/bryan-johnson-biohacker-autoimmune-gastritis.html

(2) - Gary A. Patton personal photo [pastel portrait by Susan Kahn, 2001]

#267 / Trump-Era Corruption

 

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Undoubtedly remembering how the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was characterized by FDR - with that "New Deal" description of Roosevelt's administration having been validated by historians - Peggy Noonan characterizes the administration of our current president as follows: "The Art Of The Self-Deal." A pull-quote in The Wall Street Journal highlights the topic that Noonan explores: "Thoughts on how Trump-era corruption is affecting Americans as a people." 

To cut to the chase, Noonan thinks that the effects of "Trump-era corruption" are NOT helping Americans as a people. In fact, here are the concluding three paragraphs of Noonan's column (emphasis added):

In times of corruption, good people who might run for office, don’t. They think they can’t survive in that world. Bad people, those with limited internal ethical and moral structures, are encouraged: Politics is a way to get rich and famous, to push people around. They are elected, govern badly, corruptly, and the cycle continues. 

Unchecked corruption tells cynics not that they have an uninteresting flaw but that they are realists. Never tell cynics that. It gives them license. 

As always, the whole world is watching. What it has seen lowers the esteem in which it formally (if grudgingly) held Americans. It embarrasses us before the world. It hurts our heart a little. We were the morally rectitudinous Doughboy GI Marshall Planning JFK and Ronnie People who made the wall come down. We did our best each generation to be equal to our reputation, or at least to have some class. There are foreign-policy implications to all this. Some day we’ll need friends and see only the satisfied spite of the previously jealous.

You can read Noonan's argument its entirety by clicking this link - and even non-subscribers should be able to see what Noonan says. The photo I am providing you, incidentally, is the photo which The Wall Street Journal used to accompany Noonan's column. 

I have one brief comment. While I think that Noonan accurately describes the typical reaction of the public to obvious (and odious) self-dealing and corruption by our current president and his cronies, that understandable and counter-productive reaction to corruption is not like some kind of chemical formula, operating by some law of inevitability. 

It is possible to decide, when we see our system of self-government turned into systematic self-dealing, to do the very opposite of withdrawing from politics. Lean In, the title of a book aimed at providing good advice to women who have suffered from disregard in the world of business, is exactly the right prescription for all of us, as we witness a world of politics turned into self-dealing corruption. 

We have a couple of elections coming up - and one of them is coming up soon. Let's not miss our chance to provide ourselves with a "New Deal." Once we truly lose self-government, it will be hard to build it back!

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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-art-of-the-self-deal-6cf57c5a