The Life in My Years

An anthology of life

“Loomered.” A new adjective in the lexicon, loomered means that you got yourself fired on the word of a lunatic. Laura Loomer apparently has become Donald J. Trump’s new unofficial head of human resources (and when it comes to this administration, “human” is a word used quite loosely). By most accounts Laura Loomer was the …

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May 5, 2025It ‘s Cinco de Mayo and I suspect that, unlike St. Patrick’s Day, when many people, Irish or not, hoist a mug of green beer and proclaim that “today everyone’s Irish,” there are more than a few white American folk who, after downing a few tequila shots, stop well short of proclaiming “today …

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“Mayday” is an internationally recognized distress call used by pilots and maritime crews over radio communications in cases of extreme emergency where life or the aircraft or vessel is in immediate danger. When repeated three times in succession it is a call for urgent assistance. May Day (also known as International Workers Day), the annual …

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America has reached the momentous, yet really meaningless milestone that occurs every four years; the completion of the president’s first 100 days in office. It’s an unofficial-official anniversary demanded by nothing more than tradition. Neither required by law or mandated by the Constitution, the hundredth day is when the pollsters poll, the press reports (in …

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April 27, 2025I was at a protest yesterday and one of the speakers asked the assembled crowd, “How many of you are afraid to look at the news in the morning?” The show of hundreds of hands was almost unanimous, and I imagine that those who didn’t raise their hands had them full. Almost as …

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“Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model. Americans, Brits, Spaniards, Australians—everyone—can and should learn from it.” Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, The Hungarian Conservative, December 2022. With his engaging kindly smile, the shortish, stocky fellow with his silver/white hair parted down the middle could be any child’s …

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The second of two parts about the Trump Administration’s assault on the First Amendment. “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ~ Alexander Butcher, 2016 winner of the Orwell Youth Prize. It’s a mostly innocuous op-ed, but it got flagged as being …

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The first of two parts about the Trump Administration’s assault on the First Amendment. “Free speech is unthinkable. All other kinds of freedom are permitted. You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator; but you are not free to think for yourself.” ~ Burmese Days by George Orwell …

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On Sunday April 6th, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman turned to X (Twitter) and sounded the alarm after Trump’s so-called “liberation day” liberated Wall Street of $5 trillion dollars (and me of $20,000 dollars). Ackman wrote in part,“ … by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby …

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April 5, 2025Around the country, across all 50 states, a financially devastated, Trump weary nation took to the streets to protest. In New York and Washington DC the crowds were estimated at 100,000 each; St. Paul, Minnesota was estimated at 25,000; 10,000 in Montpelier, Vermont; 30,000 in Chicago; and 20,000 in Atlanta. In little Hercules, …

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