April 2025 “We were heading onto the ferry leaving France to England. The French border officer asked if I had applied for entry when I first arrived last week. I told him I believed the ETIAS was not required until October. He said I needed to pay the penalty within 3 days. Then when entering …
“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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
March 29, 2025.Walnut Creek, California Another Tesla Takedown protest and a much larger crowd. The previous week’s crowd was estimated at 1000. This week’s estimation is 2000. Larger and louder. Never large enough, never loud enough. From grandparents to grandchildren to family dogs, but it’s still not enough. It’s a race against autocracy and autocracy …
Here in Trumpistan it’s not all bad news. Take the now well publicized amateurish chat group of administration officials discussing a military strike against the Houthis in Yemen, using Signal, a retail messaging app, and accidentally inviting journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor in Chief of The Atlantic, to the party. When I read about this …
March 22, 2025Walnut Creek CA. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” ~ Desmond Tutu It’s the third straight week …
“To say nothing is saying something. You must denounce things you are against or one might believe that you support things you really do not.” ~ Germany Kent Silence. They say it’s golden. Except when silence is complicity. These days the silence screams approbation. “Nothing to see here,” shouts the stillness. “It’s all cool, carry …
The Life in My Years 