#121 / Reagan v. Trump

 

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Above, I am presenting you with a picture of Peggy Noonan. Noonan was one of President Ronald Reagan's speechwriters, and in a commentary that appeared in the Saturday/Sunday, April 4-5, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal, she contrasted former President Reagan with our current president. Noonan's column was titled, "A Republic, Not A Mood." Here's her observation about President Reagan:

Ronald Reagan late in his presidency, in a valedictory appearance at a Republican National Convention, spoke of how he personally experienced the office: “You don’t become president of the United States. You are given temporary custody of an institution called the presidency, which belongs to our people.” He approached his two administrations as “a sacred trust.” This was pushback against the idea of an imperial presidency, in which man and office are fused and personal power the point. But man’s life is limited and the institution is continuous, an inheritance accumulated across time. It was also a rebuke to the idea of grandiosity, in which inflated self-regard amounts to a distorted relationship with reality (emphasis added).

As the title of her column indicates, Noonan was presenting her readers with a "comparison." Here's Noonan's characterization of our current president: 

I was thinking this week that Mr. Trump’s vision of himself as primarily a dealmaker is unsuited to a necessity of presidential leadership, which involves laying out the logic of a difficult case. Deal makers gain advantage through strategies that don’t necessarily involve transparency and forthrightness. I went back to Mr. Trump’s 1987 “The Art of the Deal.” A strong undercurrent of that lively book is that it’s good to be unreadable and sneaky: “I play it very loose.” “Sometimes it pays to be a little wild.” “The truth is I’m keeping my options open.” “I also protect myself by being flexible. I never get too attached to one deal or one approach.” “I keep a lot of balls in the air.” “Once I’ve made a deal, I always come up with at least a half dozen approaches to making it work because anything can happen.” Money is a way of keeping score. “The real excitement is playing the game.”

I want to swerve here to talk about the word that keeps coming to mind when I look at the president’s leadership, and it is “mood.” A lot seems to depend on matters of personal choice, will and mood. In Iran for instance, maybe he’ll bomb the rubble until it jumps, maybe he’ll declare victory and withdraw by May, maybe he’ll send in troops. But it will be his choice, no consultation needed with that pesky branch, the legislative. 

There is something not at all right when the weightiest decisions of a democratic republic depend so much on the mood of one man (emphasis added).

I have previously noted that it is my view that electing our current president was a significant "mistake." A mistake, in fact, that has pushed me, at times, into real depression. 

Noonan's column outlines one reason that it was such a mistake to put our current president into power. The presidency belongs to the people, and what the president does, on behalf of the people, needs to depend on the people, not on the "mood" of the current incumbent. 

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https://www.cbsnews.com/video/peggy-noonan-reflects-on-a-troubled-frayed-america/

#120 / Resolution

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According to Merriam-Webster, the word "resolution" has a number of different meanings: 

First, "resolution" is a noun that is defined as "the act or process of resolving," as in "the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones." The word "resolve" also means "the act of finding an answer or solution to a conflict or problem." 

Besides that definition, Merriam-Webster says that "resolution" also denotes someone's "firmness of resolve," their "determination." 

A third definition says that a "resolution" is "a formal expression of opinion, will, or intent voted by an official body or assembled group."And "resolution" can also mean "a personal expression of will or intent, especially in pursuit of a goal." 

"Resolution" can mean "the point in a literary or dramatic work at which the main conflict is worked out," and the word, "resolution" may also denote "the subsidence of a pathological state (such as inflammation)." 

Finally, "resolution" is defined as "a measure of the sharpness of an image." The image at the top of this blog posting, for example, is a very "low resolution" picture - and what is it actually a picture of?

Maybe that's a holiday display in some big city, as seen by someone with cataracts. Or, maybe that's a highway, and the person who is seeing that image is on the wrong side of the road, with the headlights bearing down and with no easy way to get over to the right, and to follow the taillights, instead of taking on the cars with the headlights coming right at the person who is trying to interpret that low resolution image.

Speaking of cataracts, I just had my annual eye checkup the other day, and maybe that's why I started thinking about the word "resolution." As the sharpness of my vision has declined (and the eye doctor confirmed that it has), I find that I don't see as clearly as I used to, or as I would like to. But how does that lack of resolution - my inability to see clearly - relate to my determination to do something, or to hold fast to my principles and to a decision I have made? Is that kind of "resolution" weakening, as well?

I would like to think not!  

How the rather different definitions of "resolution" do interrelate seems worth thinking about, and I have ended up with an explanation that makes sense to me.

To the degree that a person can clearly see something, it's easier for that person to be "resolved," and to be determined to react in the way that she or he believes the situation demands. When things seem "fuzzy," it's hard to maintain one's "determination" to act in a particular way. Maybe you just don't know what's going on! If that's the way to are seeing it, that could certainly make you hesitate.

Given the glut of information that assaults us all, it is pretty easy to find oneself rather "fuzzy" about what's really happening, and what it all means. And when that's true, that means that our individual and collective "determination" to act in the way that we know, or believe, to be right may also waver. In fact, we can't really "resolve" what to do about something when we can't actually see what's there, or what's happening. 

Is there is a lack of decisiveness or "determination" in our political actions today - a failure of our "resolution?" If so, that may well be associated with a lack of clarity about what we're facing, or what we see happening. We need to be "clear" about what's going on in the world, so we can continue to be "resolved," and to do what we think is right. One way to test our vision, to shake off uncertainty, is to consult with others, so we get clear, from hearing those different perspectives, what's actually coming at us.

Find some friends. Talk politics (in person, please). That may help improve one's focus and understanding, and, hence, one's determination - one's resolution!

Let's not wait until next January 1st to start working on that "resolution" problem.

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https://www.mymemory.co.uk/blog/guest-post-blurry-photo-heres-how-to-fix-it/

#119 / Forget And Forgive

 

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This Land Is Your Land is a new book by Beverly Gage. It is structured as "a travelogue of [Gage's] recent journeys to memorials, monuments, national parks and other points of interest across the country." Gage is currently serving as a professor of history at Yale University, and her recent book was reviewed on April 2, 2026, in The Wall Street Journal. 

The picture above,  showing the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, is to reference what the reviewer thinks was a major failing in Gage's book: 

Gage ... could have visited Dayton, Ohio's many sites devoted to the Wright Brothers and their world-changing invention. She might have mentioned Hollywood or Broadway, two wellsprings of U.S. cultural soft power. None of these destinations made her itinerary. Innovators and entrepreneurs such as Ford and George Pullman, discussed on visits to Detroit and Chicago, respectively, figure mainly as exploiters of the working class." 

Gage, in other words, is being faulted for her lack of "boosterism," something I discussed in an earlier blog posting of mine, "Is Self-Congratulation Really What We Need?" That blog posting, too, referenced a column in The Wall Street Journal.

What struck me in the Wall Street Journal's review of Gage's book was not, actually, its continuing efforts to promote American self-congratulation. I was captured by the very first paragraph in the review, which reads as follows (emphasis added):

The French historian Ernest Renan identified the tension between a nation-state’s need for a legitimizing narrative and the often ugly truths of its actual past. “Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation,” Renan declared in 1882. Hence, “progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial.”

Let's think about slavery, and the continued racial discrimination that still haunts our nation's daily life. Let's think about the abasement of women in the political life of the country. Let's think about the concentration camps into which President Roosevelt sent U.S. citizens of Japanese descent in World War II. Let's think about wars of aggrandizement, and the studied disregard of mercy, as United States armed forces recently killed men floating in the water, and hoping to be rescued, after their small boat was destroyed by an attack by the United States' military.

This nation has much for which it can, and should, "congratulate itself." It also has much for which it ought to attone. The question raised, for me, by the first paragraph of the book review, the paragraph that I have reproduced above, is how we need to think about "forgetfulness" and "self-forgiveness," as we consider our history. 

In college, I majored in United States history. And I think we do need to "remember" the horrible things that Americans have done, and we must label them for what they were, errors, sins, and crimes. On the other hand, we are alive now, and the most important thing that we can do is to understand our power, today, to do something different, something "new," something we believe will be "good," something never even thought about before. 

Forget the past? I think not. If Renan suggests that we should "forget," I don't think I can follow him there. 

But forgiveness? Can we not forgive ourselves, and not only collectively, but forgive those individuals who did the horrible things, in our names, that we cannot forget?

I suggest we can. The only kind of "forgetfulness" that is legitimate is the "forgive and forget" variety, in which "forgiveness" comes first, which then permits us to "forget" the horrible things we have done (individually and collectively) - at least in the sense of not being haunted and tormented for them. Of course, we don't actually "forget" those horrible things - or, at least, we shouldn't. We simply need to make "forgiveness" come first. We must forgive ourselves, our families, and our nation for the things that we, or they, shouldn't have done, but did in fact do (or the things we should have done, but didn't).

It is only when we can forgive ourselves, and others, in this way, that we can truly accomplish something new, and different, and better, and transformative. It is only when we place forgiveness first that we can allow ourselves to set aside our sins (and others' sins), and strive forward, in a new day, to create a new and better reality, a new and better "now," which is the moment in which we are alive, and in which we have - we always have - the power to act!

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Image Credit:

https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/2021/12/14/states-join-tribute-first-flight-orville-and-wilbur-wright/6493572001/

#118 / Get Rich Now, Or Else

  

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The picture above is associated with a column by Tim Higgins. His column appeared in The Wall Street Journal on January 20, 2026. Online, the title of Higgins' column read this way: "Why The Tech World Thinks The American Dream Is Dying." The title on the print version, I suggest, was a little more inflammatory:

Tech World Says Get Rich Now, Or Else

I am reacting to that print version headline.

The essence of what Higgins is saying is that there is a good argument, which must be taken seriously, that "the current artificial intelligence boom will be the last chance to get rich before artificial intelligence makes money essentially worthless." 

Presumably, those who are already rich, and the "tech bros" who are getting rich on the current A.I. boom, will be just fine. However, what about the rest of us poor schmucks? Well, the implicit lesson is found in that print version headline. You had better get rich now - or else! The door on "rich" is closing!

This idea, of course, is contrary to what we have all been told from time immemorial. Our faith, largely justified by past experience, too, is that new technologies ultimately make everyone better off. That "rising tide" we have always heard about will lift all boats. 

Higgins doesn't, completely, say that there is going to be a fundamental change. But he takes that headline I quoted pretty seriously. Here is how he ends his column, citing to a tech entrepreneur who predicted, last year, that "the mother of all tech booms is coming." Here is what he said, by way of advice, just following that quote: 

Get Some While You Can

I am somewhat dubious about the value of the A.I. developments that are driving massive investments right at the moment - and I don't necessarily believe that there is no stopping A.I.. The massive (and negative) impacts that giant data centers are having on the natural environment, the environment that sustains all life on the planet, makes me think that this may be a "pride goeth before a fall" moment. 

However, let's assume that A.I. will proceed to "take over" our lives, making everyone almost totally dependent on it, and upon the infrastructure that makes it all possible. If that might turn out to be true, it probably does make sense to pay some attention to Higgins' warning.

Upon reading Higgins' column, and thinking about the question, I had two immediate reactions. First, being "rich" doesn't mean that a person's life is going to be either "better" or more satisfying. Being "poor" is a different story. If I don't get "rich," I am not going to pout. If A.I. makes us "poor," however, so my grandkids won't get medical care, a good education, or enough to eat - and if the advent of A.I. means that my family members and all our friends won't have a roof over their heads (all these things going along with being "poor"), I am going to be very upset. 

In fact, I think that what Higgins is suggesting is that missing the A.I. boom will, essentially, make huge numbers of people truly "poor," and that talking about how missing the A.I. boon might foreclose a person's chance to be "rich" is just trying to put a positive spin on things. If it does turn out to be true that if you don't end up being "rich" then you are going to be "poor," and plunged into poverty, then we ought to be doing something to stop what's happening, as opposed to trying to figure out how to become individually "rich." 

This brings up the second thought I had. Higgins column focuses on the "individual." The column doesn't provide any sense of our collective ability, perhaps, to make everyone "rich." In truth, we are not just a collection of individuals, we are "in this together." If A.I. is going to increase productivity, and cut costs, and produce economic benefits, then society at large, which includes all of us, should be the beneficiary. 

In order to make that idea work out in real life, of course, those who are not likely to become individually rich need to get organized, and start making rules that will insure that everyone benefits from the new technologies that are coming. 

That means "politics." That means, to alter the headline I have quoted, that the following admonition is the advice we need to follow:

Get Organized Now, Or Else!

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https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/why-the-tech-world-thinks-the-american-dream-is-dying-daf793dc

#117 / That Deadline Muse

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It has been a long time since I commuted, each weekday, to Monterey County, which is what I did when I served as the first Executive Director of LandWatch. Though my interactions with Monterey County, and with its various land use issues, have disappeared from my immediate and daily life, I still read The Carmel Pine Cone online. The Pine Cone comes out on a weekly basis, and for what it's worth, I think anyone living in the Monterey Bay Area (and even including in Santa Cruz County) might find a lot to like in The Pine Cone if they followed my example. You can sign up for free, by the way!

Here's one thing I liked in the Publisher's weekly email letter, which accompanied a link to the April 24-30, 2026, edition of The Pine Cone: 

Dear Readers,
They say a deadline is the only muse that shows up on time....

I hadn't ever heard that one, but it strikes me as an observation that is right on the money! I do find that true, really, when I consider these daily blog postings of mine that I have been putting out since 2010!

This edition of "We Live In A Political World," for instance, might be considered one example - and thanks to The Pine Cone for that!

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#116 / What Good Am I?

 

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What good am I if I’m like all the rest
If I just turn away, when I see how you’re dressed
If I shut myself off so I can’t hear you cry
What good am I?

The complete lyrics to Bob Dylan's song are provided below. If you would like to listen to Bob Dylan sing that song, just click this link. 

Dylan's song poses a question I find is always worth thinking about, and today is another good day to do that. 

oooOOOooo

What Good Am I?
Written by Bob Dylan

What good am I if I’m like all the rest
If I just turn away, when I see how you’re dressed
If I shut myself off so I can’t hear you cry
What good am I?

What good am I if I know and don’t do
If I see and don’t say, if I look right through you
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin’ sky
What good am I?

What good am I while you softly weep
And I hear in my head what you say in your sleep
And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don’t try
What good am I?

What good am I then to others and me
If I’ve had every chance and yet still fail to see
If my hands are tied must I not wonder within
Who tied them and why and where must I have been?

What good am I if I say foolish things
And I laugh in the face of what sorrow brings
And I just turn my back while you silently die
What good am I?

Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music

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https://regenbrampton.com/unknown-challenges-the-homeless-face/

#115 / As Everyone Knows....

  

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I guess I wouldn't be far off if I called out Heather Cox Richardson as "America's Favorite Historian." I presume that a lot of the people who might be reading this blog posting already know about Richardson. If you don't, you can click the link to her name, to get an introduction. If you don't already subscribe to her daily Substack postings, "Letters From An American," you can click that link and sign up. 

I do read Richardson, daily, and her posting on April 22, 2026, included the following (emphasis added): 

Virginia voters yesterday agreed to a constitutional amendment that would temporarily redistrict the state if any other state redistricted for partisan reasons: that is, in retaliation for the partisan redistricting President Donald J. Trump launched in Texas in 2025 in an effort to retain control of the House of Representatives. 

As Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket noted, Trump supporters immediately insisted the voting was rigged, probably through mail-in ballots. Trump himself took to social media to attack the election, repeating charges of rigging and then adding: “In addition to everything else, the language on the Referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive. As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they! Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.’” 

In fact, Trump himself began this mid-decade partisan gerrymander race with his pressure on Texas to rejigger its maps to give Republicans more House seats. That prompted California to retaliate with its own temporary redistricting to offset the new Texas Republican-leaning seats. Other states followed suit. Republicans redistricted Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio, in addition to Texas, and expect those mid-decade redistricts will net them nine more seats. Democrats think their redistricting of California, along with a court-ordered redistricting of Utah, will get them an additional six seats. They are hoping that the temporary redistricting of Virginia will give them four more seats. 

State lawmakers in Florida will convene a special session next week to consider redistricting that state, as well, to benefit the Republicans. 

Journalist Brian Tyler Cohen noted that the Republicans have full control of the federal government and could pass a law to ban partisan gerrymandering any time they want to, as Democrats have called for, but they refuse. “Republicans aren’t mad gerrymandering exists,” Cohen notes; “they’re mad that they’re not the only ones using it.”

I disapprove of the wave of partisan redistrictings that our current president set off in Texas, followed almost immediately by the partisan redistricting sponsored by the Governor of California, in retailiation. Maybe someday I will write out my thoughts on that topic more extensively. For the moment, I have taken to my keyboard to document how astounded I was by the following statement from our currently serving Chief Executive: 

As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person...

As everyone "should know," our current president is almost totally out of touch with reality, being so preoccupied, as he is, with himself. 

A devotion to one's monumental self-regard is not the way to achieve a reputation as someone who is "an extraordinarily brilliant person." 

Sadly, and feel free to contradict me if you see it differently, our current president is absolutely the opposite of "brilliant," preoccupied, as he is, with every single little thought that passes through his brain, which he doesn't have the good sense to subjugate to a round of thinking before speaking. 

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#114 / "Mobilize" Versus "Organize"

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The New Yorker ran an article in February that compared "Mobilizing" to "Organizing." The article was authored by Charles Duhigg, and was titled, "What MAGA Can Teach Democrats About Organizing—and Infighting." Given The New Yorker's paywall policies, I doubt that non-subscribers will be able to read the entire article, though you can click the link to the title, provided above, and see how it goes. I think the article is well worth reading.

Citing to Johns Hopkins' political scientist Hahrie Han, Duhigg's article says that “Mobilizing is about getting people to do a thing, and Organizing is about getting people to become the kind of people who do what needs to be done.” Of course, Duhigg says, "it helps to be skilled at both mobilizing and organizing. But that doesn’t mean that both skills are equally important ... Organizing is more important than Mobilizing."

MAGA, according to Duhigg, has learned this lesson. Various Democratic-leaning and progressive political groups haven't (including, specifically, Indivisible, which has both a national an an impressive local presence, and that is best-known for its leadership in "No Kings" demonstrations held all around the country).

Large, top-down organizations, focused on "protests," and on "demonstrating" what people want, and what they care about, are great - and Indivisible is a prime example of how that has been done extremely well - both here in Santa Cruz County and throughout the nation. In terms of political effectiveness, though, here is what Duhigg's commentary says (with emphasis added). What he says definitely needs to be taken seriously:

Following Trump’s victory in 2016, a group of former congressional staffers inspired by the pugnacity of Tea Party conservatives posted a rousing twenty-three-page online pamphlet titled “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda,” which encouraged such tactics as setting up Google News alerts for local congresspeople and spreading out at town halls to create the perception of broad support. The group also created a Google Doc to help activists across the country find one another.... The initiative was quickly embraced by big donors and national leaders. In its first year, the group raised $2.6 million. Within two months, there were thousands of Indivisible chapters. 

But, unlike the Tea Party, which at its founding was a chaotic jumble of anti-government viewpoints and competing leadership claims, Indivisible was tightly guided by its D.C. leaders and their dozens of employees. Tea Party activists often took the initiative to run in local races for school boards or county commissions; Indivisible’s headquarters focussed mostly on national issues and federal elections. The group’s national office scored some successes: it organized demonstrations against Trump’s Cabinet nominees and protested Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare. Yet there were structural problems. Initially, the group was a place for like-minded activists in numerous cities to convene, and various chapters started having success at backing local candidates. But organizational tensions emerged among Indivisible’s headquarters—staffed by young political professionals who pushed for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy for President—and many state volunteers, who, a 2021 study found, were largely “older white women” who didn’t necessarily agree with those stances and “worked very hard to boost Democrats they understood held more moderate views.” 

The author of that study, Theda Skocpol, a political scientist at Harvard, told me that Indivisible represents “a tragic lost opportunity.” Local grassroots Indivisible groups were “very impactful on people running for office and winning,” she said, and they “operated pretty much on their own.” But the group’s top leaders, instead of building a sustainable and ideologically diverse membership, focussed on high-profile protests—and on maintaining ideological unity. At one point, the Indivisible headquarters discouraged chapters from endorsing candidates who were pro-life, or didn’t support gender-affirming care, or questioned making it easier for people to register to vote. 

In her study, Skocpol wrote that, “since 2017, national Indivisible leaders have raised tens of millions of dollars from major donors, but have not devolved significant resources away from Washington, D.C., to empower democratically accountable state and local leaders. Instead, Indivisible directors have invested most of their resources into running a large, professionally staffed, national advocacy organization.” (Indivisible disputes Skocpol’s assessment and sent me a statement saying that it has “enthusiastically campaigned for Democrats across the political spectrum.”) 

Skocpol went on, “If progressive-minded Americans want real change, most of the expertise, money and time we can muster should stop flowing into national advocacy bureaucracies engaged in symbolic maneuvers and purist politics.” 

Ben Wikler chaired the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from 2019 to 2025. He recently told me that “Democrats should be learning from the Republicans about how to build small, socially interconnected communities.”

Building "small, socially interconnected communities," sounds a lot like what I have been urging, in my various blog postings. "Find Some Friends," is how I have frequently put it, and I usually add that once you have a group, you need to meet, in person, on a frequent basis, decide things you can do, together, and make "politics," not online entertainment or other pursuits, your first priority, as you decide how to spend your time. 

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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/02/what-maga-can-teach-democrats-about-organizing-and-infighting

#113 / In Troubled Times...

 

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Here are some words from Henry David Thoreau:

“In Wildness Is The Preservation Of The World" 

"Wildness" is not exactly the same as "Wilderness," but there are some very significant connections between them. Here are some words from Michele Dieterich, who is the Secretary of the Board of Directors of Wilderness Watch: 

"In troubled times, Wilderness is the way."

I am a longtime supporter of Wilderness Watch, a nonprofit organization that is "dedicated solely to protecting the lands and waters in our National Wilderness Preservation System." The Spring 2026 issue of its newsletter, "Wilderness Watcher," spoke powerfully about our need to tell ourselves - in these troubled times - that we need to maintain our official "hands off" policies when we consider "improving" our designated wilderness areas.

Wilderness is a reminder - a reminder we will always need - that we live, "ultimately," in the "World of Nature," a world into which we have been rather mysteriously born, and which supports everything we, ourselves, have ever been able to build or do.

Our human powers are prodigious, and we do, most "immediately," live in a world that we ourselves create. Ultimately, however, we live in the "Natural World," the "World of Nature," the "World that God Created," a world which was once a "Wilderness" entire. 

Let us be sure to save what's left of our wilderness, to remind us of who we are and where we are. In these troubled times, reading the latest Wilderness Watch newsletter can help drive this lesson home!

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https://wildernesswatch.org/action-alerts/

#112 / Student Exchange

  

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Many people have at least some experience with student exchange programs - at least they know about them. Some of these programs are officially sponsored by the United States Government. Click right here for the Department of State's website devoted to the exchange programs affliliated with the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. 

I never was an exchange student, during my high school years, but I definitely knew a number of exchange students who came to Palo Alto High School from other countries. Recently, as it has become ever clearer to me that we are "all in this together" - globally, and not just nationally - I have begun entertaining the idea that there is a lot of potential benefit in promoting a greatly expanded program of student exchange. 

One of the great things about "self-government" is that every one of us can have an idea that might ripen into real action, affecting our local community, or even our state, or even the entire nation. So, here's an idea. What about expanding student exchange programs until such programs are, essentially, so extensive that almost every student participates?

We could do that! What if Congress could be convinced that building connections between every country in the world, and our country, the United States, would advance our national interest? I do think that there is a pretty good argument that such an expanded student exchange program would do just that.

If we decided to do it, we could make a national decision to spend some considerable amount of our tax dollars making arrangements to send U.S. high school students to virtually every country in the world, while simultaneously welcoming foreign students to come to our country. I am thinking of, perhaps, a six-month program, to send almost every U.S. high school student abroad (to virtually every country in the world), while bringing similarly aged students here, from other countries, so that they could learn, firsthand, about the United States. If we did that, we might find that the result, over the long run, would be a world that could better work together to deal with the planetary-level challenges that are going to be of increasing importance in the years soon coming. 

There is also another advantage to this idea, too. Right now, as most of us are painfully aware, there are a number of nations with nuclear weapons (including our own), and these nations are tempted, always, to consider using such nuclear weapons against another nations (including our own). So far, the only nation that has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation is the United States, and our current president has indicated, fairly recently, that this is definitely an option that he wants to continue to have available. China, Korea, Russia, and maybe even Iran could be in a position to consider using nuclear weapons against us - and Israel might be tempted to use its nuclear weapons, too, even if it's unlikely that the United States would be the target. You get the picture. We are all implicated in a kind of "nuclear hostage" situation, and dangers seem to be growing, not getting less.

If there were thousands, or even tens of thousands, of young students from these nuclear-capable countries here in the United States, the possibility that someone would want to fire off nuclear weapons that would end up killing their own students would certainly be discouraged. And, of course, if thousands of U.S. students were in places like China, and Russia, and Iran, the U.S. government would certainly have to think very hard before launching a nuclear weapon against such a country. 

Well, this is just a thought. New ideas are needed. It is ever more clear that we live in one world, and that "nationalism" is not going to be a solid basis on which the nations of the world can move ahead to a better future. Getting our young students involved in other countries, as a routine matter, might make our international interdependence ever more clear, with new possibilities for peace and cooperation. 

That's sure a problem we ought to be working on!

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https://ieltsonlinetests.com/writing-correction/international-student-exchange-corrected-essay

#111 / Are You Losing Your Will To Work?

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We are all turning into "grasshoppers" now - at least according to Barton Swaim, writing in the April 18-19, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal. Swaim's column was titled, "America Loses Its Will To Work." Click the link if you'd like to read Swaim's argument. I am told that no paywall will prevent you! Click right here if you need to refresh your memory about that that Aesop's Fable about the ant and the grasshopper.

Swaim asserts that "evidence abounds that many Americans no longer consider gainful work a natural and necessary part of life." He points to the "explosion of online sports betting" as the main proof that this is, in fact, an accurate statement. 

I am absolutely in agreement that "betting," in all of its various forms, is a plague upon society - and with online sports betting mainly intended, the way I see it, to filch scarce money from the pockets of those who succumb to its allure. Back in the middle of April, as Swaim was writing his column, the Chief of Police in New Haven, Connecticut was arrested in connection with his online gambling habit. It's quite a story, let me tell you, and he was fully employed! Click that link to read it!

While I don't really buy into the idea that Americans (and particularly young Americans) have turned into a plague of grasshoppers, enamored of personal enjoyment, and unconcerned about the fact that the winter is coming, I do think that we should be paying attention to "employment" and "work" issues. 

Most of the news stories that I read are basically telling everyone in our society (and particularly young people, perhaps) that there aren't going to be any jobs in the future. A.I., we are told, will replace pretty much all of the jobs now available, and it's not welfare-dependent poor people who are carrying this message. To the contrary, it is the extremely wealthy (the A.I. giants who constantly boast of their billionaire status, and of the billionaire backers of the new A.I.-based economy yet to come). Those billionaires are the folks who are sending the message, to all the non-billionaires, that "work" isn't going to support them in the future. 

I think that this message from the billionaires, and not any moral failure on the part of a young "grasshopper generation," is likely to be much more the cause of what Swaim is writing about than any moral collapse, caused by a whole generation deciding that they should get something for nothing. 

The economic productivity that is a fact of our modern life should be mobilized for the benefit of everyone - meaning that food, shelter, education, health care, and meaningful employment opportunities should be something that everyone in our society should be able to count on. Taxes, you know, they'd be involved in making that happen. Then... What about collabortative efforts to provide a job to everyone - a job they'd find worthwhile, a job they'd want to do not because they were trying to "make a million," but because they saw its importance and understood the benefits that the job would provide to them, as well as to others in society. 

I'm thinking of jobs like: (1) Childcare; (2) Assistance for the elderly, who are trying to navigate a complicated society with diminished mental capacity; (3) Wildland stewards helping to replant forests, and to prevent forest fires; (4) Building rail and similar transportation projects to replace our dysfunctional automobile-based freeway system; (5) Environmental restoration projects; (6) Solar Energy installations; (7) Teachers! (8) Public Art; (9) Neighborhood Cleanups; (10) Etc.

The United States is the wealthiest society in the history of the world, and we got that way through hard work. Telling everyone (especially young people) that there aren't going to be any jobs in the future, which is what they are being told, today, by the billionaire class, is totally counterproductive. There are LOTS of jobs that need doing, and we, with all our wealth, could make them available. The "Etc." category is huge!

Could we do that?

Well, yes! Duh!!

But it would require us - "we, the people" - to decide that this is exactly what we need to do. In other words, instead of articles trying to "describe" what exists, let's start writing articles about what we want to happen (so we can then get out, and get to work, and make it happen). This blog posting is one such article.

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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/america-loses-its-will-to-work-85d74fd6

#110 / Three C's Tell The Story

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The Wall Street Journal's "Bookshelf" section reviewed the above-pictured book in its Thursday, March 26, 2026, edition. The review, by Meghan Cox Gurdon, was titled, "Vehicles of Emotion," and was not very complimentary. Among other things, Gurdon calls Ashton's methods "tiresome." It may be, if you are not a subscriber to The Journal, that the link I have just provided will not actually get you to Gurdon's review; however, it should; I have been informed it will - and you can certainly give it a try.

As far as I am concerned, the value of the review - and perhaps the main value of the book - consists in Gurdon's identification of the three things that Ashton says are necessary for a "good story." They are, in short: (1) Character; (2) Chronology; and (3) Consequence. 

Gurdon doesn't spent a lot of time expounding on the importance of these three keys to a "good story," but I, personally, had never really thought about these three aspects of storytelling as the keys to determining whether or not a story is "good." Upon reflection, I do think that "character, chronology, and consequence" define a "good story." 

Those who might want to try their hand at writing a good story (I am always tempted to give it a whirl, myself, but have never really done so - at least not yet) could do a lot worse than blocking out those three C's in advance, and then getting to the writing. 

If Gurdon is correct about the merits (or lack of merits) of Ashton's book, you now know that you won't have to buy it, as Step #1 in your potential career as a writer of stories. 

Just pay attention to the Three C's. That'll do it! Take it from there!

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https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-story-of-stories-the-million-year-history-of-a-uniquely-human-art_kevin-ashton/58099045/item/85770044/#edition=73554672&idiq=85770044

#109 / So, How Did Life Begin?

 

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The Bible has a story about how life began. You can read all about it in the Book of Genesis. God created life. That sums up the Bible story pretty well!

A recent story in The New York Times outlines evidence that life could have developed on Planet Earth by way of microbes coming from Mars. 

If you read that article, and no paywall should prevent you from doing that, please note that this article in The Times does not provide any explanation for how such living microbes might have found themselves on Mars, before their transportation to Earth by way of a cosmic collision between an asteroid and the Red Planet. 

So, here's a thought. From the first, human beings have been naturally curious about where they came from, and they have never ceased to think about this topic, and ponder, and experiment, and come up with stories to explain what is, actually, not "explainable" at all. At least, it's not "explainable" if we take "explainable" to mean "provable," and accurate, and clearly "true." An honest evaluation would have to admit that how we came to be, alive as we are, is not anything we will ever be able to "prove."

We do, though, of course, have various "stories," and they all shed some light on the subject. At least, that's my view. 

The "scientific story," of which the "Mars microbe" theory might be a part, is that inert matter, at some point (somewhere - and maybe on Mars), was transformed, somehow, into something that could self-replicate, and could "change" and "evolve" in the process of doing that. Self-replication, including the possibility of changes occurring during the process, does, it seems to me, provide a pretty handy way to describe what it means to be "alive." Hence: evolution and our "scientific" story of how we got to be the way we are.

To me, it's pretty obvious that the "scientific" explanation of what "life" is, and how it came to be, is a kind of "story" that is not totally different from the story told in Genesis. 

Out of nothing.... something (including life). No demonstrable proof of the actual "cause" of the realities we can track.

Maybe, there is no "Creator," and things have always been that way. We put that "Creator" into the story because we don't have any experience with a world (here, or on Mars, or anywhere else) where things just happen without a "cause" of some kind. Microbes from Mars, mutating on Earth, could be true, I suppose, but those "why" and "how" questions just don't go away. That "Mars microbes" story doesn't really explain anything about those "why" and "how" inquiries, which our hypothetically mutated minds continue to wonder about. 

Maybe it's just one of those "Sunday" things, but I'm sticking with the story that includes God the Creator.

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https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/where-is-the-garden-of-eden-and-where-would-it-be-located-today#google_vignette

#108 / What Looks Large From A Distance

  

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Well, they’re not showing any lights tonight
And there’s no moon
There’s just a hot-blooded singer
Singing “Memphis in June”
While they’re beatin’ the devil out of a guy
Who’s wearing a powder-blue wig
Later he’ll be shot
For resisting arrest
I can still hear his voice crying
In the wilderness
What looks large from a distance
Close up ain’t never that big

      Bob Dylan, "Tight Connection To My Heart"

The next-to-last verse of "Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anyone Seen My Love)" is cited in that "pull quote" just above. If you'd like to read the full lyrics, click on the link to the title of the song. Click right here if you'd like to hear Dylan sing the song, and if you'd like to watch his official video (which is pretty weird and mystifying, if you ask me).

What I want to comment on are the last two lines of that verse I'm citing, which I have bolded. Dylan's statement in those last two lines (at least to me) doesn't seem to relate very directly to the story being told in the song. Dylan's statement, in fact, is a stand-alone piece of significant wisdom that any thoughtful person might want to bring forward during a discussion of love, life and death - and other important topics we all know about. Those last two lines in that next-to-last verse provide us with a piece of wisdom we all ought to keep in mind!

What Dylan says in those two lines is true, isn't it, as a general proposition? What seeems to be so "big," so "important," the things that we're told are earthshaking and of critical impact, the odds we are informed are insuperable, only seem to be that way until we encounter them "close up." 

Dylan has such little pearls of wisdom scattered throughout his prodigious work - something that is also mentioned in another, and fairly recent, blog posting of mine, discussing a relatively new book about Dylan's literary and philosophically important work over the last thirty years or so. Let's take this quoted statement seriously - the statement I have bolded; that's what I am suggesting. 

The things that seem overwhelming, the challenges that present themselves to us, and to the world, as something impossible to deal with, the problems we "can't solve," only seem that way when we're not actually grappling with them "close up." 

Restoring democratic self-government to the United States. Making real progress on income inequality. Stopping the wars that are proliferating everywhere, abolishing the potential for nuclear war, providing meaningful work for everyone, etc. These are the kind of gigantic challenges which do, indeed, "look large."

When we get to work on any of those "looks large from a distance" problems and challenges, though - if we are bold enough, or "crazy" enough to take them on - we mostly find that they aren't really that big. Not once we're up close and personal, not once we get personally involved in dealing with them.

Courage to take on the monumental challenges that do, indeed, seem "monumental," is essential. Essential, anyway, if we want to accomplish what we must. The challenges that will determine the future of democracy, the future of the human race, the continued habitability of Planet Earth, the future of our children and grandchildren - all of these challenges seem "large," too large to take on. But are they, really, when we take them on "close up"?

Think about picking your own, "looks large" problem, but as you do that, remember this piece of wisdom from Mr. Dylan. "What looks large from a distance, close up ain't never that big." 

I'm old. I've been around, and I have been listening to Mr. Dylan for a long time. Think about it. He's right about this. I hope that's motivating!

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https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/tight-connection-my-heart-has-anyone-seen-my-love/

#107 / KYBO And KYMO

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I will begin my blog posting today with a clipping from The Sun magazine. That's an unusual magazine - just in case you haven't heard of it - and I subscribe. The Sun is worth checking out, in my opinion. Click the link and see what you think.

Now, here's an excerpt from that clipping I mentioned, from the edition of The Sun dated October 2025: 

Readers Write - Graffiti 

AT THE GROUP OF SLEEPAWAY CAMPS I worked for in Vermont, the outhouses were called “kybos”— one of those camp-lore terms whose origin is shrouded in mystery. My job entailed going from camp to camp, and as one of the few people there over the age of forty, I was picky about which kybos I’d use. My favorite, cantilevered off the side of a hill and accessible via a short wooden bridge, was at a camp for boys ages nine to fourteen—a demographic known for its poop jokes. But the users of this kybo decorated its walls with haiku:

This is Haikubo
the art of writing haikus
while on the kybo

Haikus are easy
but they don’t always make sense.
Refrigerator.
And, in response to the poem above:

“Haiku” when plural
is still “haiku.” It is
a Japanese word.

Because the camps had a strict no-screens policy, I couldn’t distract myself with my phone while on the toilet. When I used Haikubo, I didn’t miss it at all.

Celia Barbour
Garrison, New York

"Readers Write" is a section featured in each monthly edition of The Sun. A "topic" for each upcoming issue is announced - a couple of months in advance - and readers send in their response, focused on the topic for the month. Selections from the readers are then published in the magazine. I enjoyed the submission above, submitted in response to the prompt for that month, "Graffiti," but it left a question in my mind: What does "KYBO" actually stand for? Why was "KYBO" chosen as the name for "outhouse." What "camp-lore" resulted in KYBO = Primative Outdoor Toilet?

I got an answer - but I had to wait a few issues. The January 2026 edition of The Sun had a letter in its "Correspondence" section that said that the term "KYBO" stood for "Keeping Your Bowels Open."

Now, that phrase, the key to the use of "KYBO" as a shorthand for "Outhouse," provides some helpful advice. I have been given that advice before, actually, sometimes in a "medical" context, though this advice has never been conveyed by way of the "KYBO" abbreviation.  

For whatever reason, learning the meaning of "KYBO" made me think of another four-letter abbreviation which also carries some good advice. Here's my suggestion for all of us: 

KYMO - "Keep Your Mind Open" 

 

Thanks to The Sun, I am now providing you with a shorthand way to convey some very pertinent personal and political advice!

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https://toiletology.com/resources/history/history-of-the-outhouse/