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By the lake’s lapping shore above the town and the railroad tracks, my wife and I stopped and marveled, struck stone silent by two dazzling Baltimore Orioles, clawed together as they tumbled, wrestling in the green morning breeze above our heads.  They perched upon a branch and sang a morning hymn, an ode to joy and the spring’s morning glory.  Their black and orange throats vibrated amid the green quaking aspen’s leaves as the lake’s low lapping sounds lent counterpoint.  They were sublime.

I too felt a quake, a shiver down my spine as associations tumbled through my mind.  Poems, songs, …

It’s believed that, for thousands of years, certain members of human clans would wield some kind of magic stick. For example, here’s one — carved to look like a viper — that was found in Finland. They claim it’s over 4,000 years old:

In some cultures, if the shaman or medicine man pointed such a stick at someone, that person would be immediately stricken dead. Stories abound — across the globe — of precisely this happening.

In many indigenous clans, …

It is indeed a tale of many cities, worlds, perspectives, and then we have beliefs and morals. Add to that alternative and ulterior modes of realities, and we have a virtual Babel’s Tower of conflicting, contradicting and confusing form of “discourse,” or debate.  Never mind the Matrix angle of things! In today’s Western Culture (sic), where I am firmly rooted (USA, West Coast, Rural Oregon, Tourist By-way, Retired & Service Economy),  there is not so much nuance anymore, inside the souls — hearts and minds — of my fellow Americans. When you really look at it, nuance (deep thinking, considering …

The famous “rescuing hug”

I was recently reminded of the incredible story of the “rescuing hug” photo (above). To sum up the basics:

Kyrie and Brielle Jackson were born on October 17, 1995 — 12 weeks ahead of their due date. Kyrie weighed only 2 pounds, 3 ounces. Brielle was even smaller and far more frail.

As per hospital policy, they were placed in separate incubators to reduce the risk of infection. Kyrie slowly began to thrive but Brielle did not. She experienced heart and breathing problems and was put in critical …

What does it say about people when they try and put down arguments by call them conspiracy theory?

It involved bringing out the irregular or peculiar from society’s peripheries – at least as popularly perceived at the time. Granted a national, broadcasting stage, various persons of despair would perform, if only for a spectacular, brief moment. Cue the chants of a studio audience and the threat of physical confrontation. And the late Jerry Springer, former news reporter and Cincinnati mayor, would be there, willing to market the performance and throw these samples of humanity upon screen and audience. Before the idea of incendiary, vapid reality television, there was The Jerry Springer Show.

It all began on the fifth-floor studio …

The former Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has been somewhat of an absentee in the Federal seat of Cook. Since losing the May 2022 election, he has been aggressively chasing up contacts and deals on the consultancy circuit, bellyaching about the usual talking points: the gruesome China menace; defence matters; and, just to round it off for good measure, additional iterations of the China menace.

In March, he proved particularly jingoistic, telling Sky News Australia that Canberra needed, not only its “own capability” but “the interlocking alignments and alliances that actually provide the counterbalance to the threat.” This was …

Think “out-of-this-universe” rights (Universal Rights, my ass), hint hint, chuckle chuckle. Universal Rights Given to Us By Whom? In USA? This is a joke beyond jokes.

I was at a Chamber (local) meeting with 50 folk. Yesterday. Yeah, jolly jolly, out to a community college room, with pastries from the local bakery, and people there wondering really what the art world future of the little 2,100 populous Waldport has in store. Art? Crafts? This is delusion. Not real jobs, real community buttressing, real services, bringing in older people to live and survive in nice facilities, townhomes, what have you, with a …

“They hate our freedoms.” — US president George W Bush addresses the nation, 20 September 2001

Detail of: Birender Kumar Yadav (India), Debris of Fate, 2015.

In late 2022, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) released a fascinating report entitled Working Time and Work-Life Balance Around the World, in large part encouraged by a slew of initiatives across India to extend the workday. The report accumulated global data on the time spent at work in 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ILO found that ‘approximately one third of the global workforce (35.4 percent) worked more than 48 hours …

In a society built on lies, the search for truth is a game.

Consider the debate surrounding alleged ‘threats’ to the BBC’s ‘independence’, even as the BBC itself reports of its outgoing chairman:

‘As for Mr Sharp’s departure, I understand conversations between the BBC and the government have been had in recent days. You’d expect that.

‘The BBC chairman is a political appointment.’

If that doesn’t justify Twitter labelling every BBC journalist ‘UK state-affiliated media’, we don’t know what does.

Or consider how, cap in hand, the Guardian now presents itself …

It’s understandable that, when the Senate Dems need 50 of their 51 members to vote on something for it to pass, Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have a lot more influence than they should. But it has been maddening to see, on the one hand, corrupt coal baron Joe Manchin using that power to advance his and corporate fossil fuelers’ interests as head of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee while, on the other hand, President Joe Biden says nothing publicly to counter him.

Over a year ago Manchin effectively took over FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This happened …

In his 1987 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy reassured Americans that the decline the United States was facing after a century of international dominance was “relative and not absolute, and is therefore perfectly natural; and that the only serious threat to the real interests of the United States can come from a failure to adjust sensibly to the newer world order.”

Since Kennedy wrote those words, we have seen the end of the Cold War, the peaceful emergence of China as a leading world power, …

In Pisces Moon: The Dark Arts of Empire, Douglas Valentine descends into some of the most sinister aspects of US foreign policy. These include drug running, illegal arms sales, bribery, human and artifact trafficking, far right coups, assassinations, agitprop and disinformation, as well as fiefdoms set up by former CIA and their assets that are rife with slavery, pedophilia and sadistic sex. Pisces Moon creates a mixture of the personal and historical, an intimate Heart of Darkness, that in moments captures the poisonous fog that inhabits Coppola’s …

The world has been haunted by human violence since time immemorial. There are untold millions (billions?) of people all over the world who have been scarred by it in all its forms.  There are two basic responses: one is to try to return that violence with violence and defeat one’s enemy; the other is, in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words, to “not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding” through a non-violent response.  Politicians usually embrace the former, while those who are called dreamers advocate the latter.

Between these two, there are various mixed …