Current affairs

Usually my response to bad economic news is to ignore it as much as possible. After all, what goes up must come down, and what goes down must come up. So freaking out over short-term worries about inflation, unemployment, the stock market, gas prices, or whatever generally isn't justified. Typically, when things look to be the darkest, the economic sun is about to turn brighter. Thus even though I find it difficult to look at my iPhone's stock market app first thing in the morning, because I don't want to get depressed before I've had breakfast (might as well wait…

It's been about six months since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In those dark early days of the war, it seemed highly unlikely that Ukraine would still be an independent nation half a year later. Yet here we are, with the brave Ukrainians basically fighting Russia to a standstill. So let's remember Ukraine -- today, tomorrow, every day.  If Ukraine continues to get strong support from the United States and our allies, there's a very good chance that before too long Putin and his Kremlin cronies will realize that the price of waging their unprovoked war against Ukraine…

I resonate with this image I saw on Facebook, though it doesn't go far enough. Yes, the horrendous Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade took away the freedom of women in about half the states to choose an abortion. Thankfully, Oregon isn't one of them. But there's plenty of other threats to the values our country was founded on. We're in grave danger of losing them. Democracy. The January 6 committee is doing a great job of revealing the details of how close Trump and his enablers came to overturning the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. What's…

Yesterday thirteen people were shot and ten killed at a Buffalo supermarket by an 18-year-old white man armed with an assault rifle and high capacity magazines. A day after one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history, law enforcement officials in New York descended on the home of the accused gunman and probed disturbing hints into his behavior, as Gov. Kathy Hochul promised action on hate speech that she said spreads “like a virus.” The suspect, Payton S. Gendron, 18, shot 13 people on Saturday afternoon at a Tops supermarket in east Buffalo, killing 10, officials said. Almost…

Gather around the blog post kitchen table, young'uns. (Which means just about everyone, since I'm 73, older than all but a few people reading this, but, hey, if you're a sentient Giant Sequoia, I'm a baby compared to you.) I realize that hearing senior citizens talk about the good old days is just about the most boring thing imaginable. Not wanting to inflict that on you, I'm going to do something different. Talk about the bad old days.  I feel the need to do this because it wasn't all that long ago when I was a youngster just out of…

I'm a Democrat who is ever so thankful that Joe Biden is president rather than Donald Trump. But if I could trade Biden for President Zelensky of Ukraine, I'd make that deal without a second thought. Zelensky is a fighter. He's rallied the Ukrainian people behind him in their battle against Russia's invasion of their country. More: Zelensky has inspired the entire freedom-loving world by refusing to bow to the demands of Putin, an authoritarian ruler who is committing horrific war crimes in Ukraine, if not outright genocide. Biden, by contrast, is doing OK in supporting Ukraine, but not nearly…

It's too early to tell how Putin's invasion of Ukraine is going to turn out. Currently a 40-mile long Russian military convoy is making its way toward Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Tough times lie ahead for the people of Ukraine, who have been fighting bravely against the stronger Russian forces. But one thing is certain. The freedom-loving world has been inspired by the fierce determination of Ukrainians to preserve their democracy.  Strong sanctions against Russia have been supported by most European nations, even including usually neutral Switzerland, which has frozen the accounts of Russian oligarchs and others targeted by the…

I was nineteen years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968. When it happened I was on a sophomore semester abroad in Zadar, Yugoslavia along with a couple of dozen other students from San Jose State College and a few professors. I remember local people coming up to me and my classmates expressing sympathy for King's death in broken English. The same thing happened a few months later when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated on June 6, 1968. That year, 1968, was a dark time for the United States. So is 2022.…

I'm not allowed to use our washing machine, since my wife (correctly) doesn't trust me to handle clothes with the proper water temperature and dryer settings. But ever since our fairly new Maytag decided that it would be a fun joke to start a washing cycle, then turn off when it got to the rinse mode, Laurel hasn't been able to use the washing machine either.  She searched our files and found that, as she remembered, we did indeed buy an extended warranty from Kelly's. Sweet, we thought. It wasn't hard to find the "Parts and Service" page on the…

There's way too many Americans unduly confident right now. They're sure they're right about Covid policies, the just-ended war in Afghanistan, racial justice, abortion, and a host of other issues that mostly get reduced to short sound bites, pithy Twitter tweets, brief Facebook posts, and other manifestations of our desire to appear absolutely certain about subjects that demand a word currently out of fashion.  Nuance.  Which means, a subtle distinction, an awareness of delicate shadings (as of meaning, feelings. or value). How did we get to such a dearth of nuance among a large proportion of our citizenry?  It's tempting…

For the past few days I've been agonizing over how I feel about the situation in Afghanistan. It pains me that the horrific scenes of panicked people at the Kabul airport trying to flee their country are happening on Biden's watch, since I view him as hugely more competent than Trump, and so far he's mostly done the right things as president. Last night my daughter, Celeste, and I talked by phone. Even though we're both progressives, much of our conversation centered on what was happening in Afghanistan.  Almost certainly the Taliban takeover will doom Afghan women and girls to…

Tomorrow at 2 am Daylight Savings Time returns. May it never depart again.  Late fall and winter already are depressingly dark. Losing an hour of late afternoon sun in November, when Daylight Savings Time ends, means that doing anything outside at that time is dreary, if not impossible.  Fortunately, there seems to be a good chance Congress is going to do away with the twice yearly clock changeover. So says a LA Times opinion piece. It’s nearly that time of year again when Americans reset their clocks one hour ahead, grumble about losing an hour of sleep — and wonder…