The Martian

My sister invited me to an arts festival In her small town in Connecticut. We spent all morning dropping in To open-house studios of local artists. My sister is a potter. We had lunch at her studio. She said, I have to stay here But you should check out the Martian. The who? She laughed. …

Virtually everyone supports Social Security…except Congress:

Defend Socialism in One Demographic!

  In the bizarro world of politics in the United States today, probably the most radical government program that exists — the one most close to a socialist idea that actually works and is popular with the vast majority of Americans — is Social Security. Established in 1936 as a pillar of the hugely popular …

Future campaigns will be about women's rights, not saving or overturning a court ruling

If Roe v. Wade Goes away, So Will Easy Re-Elections for Right-Wing Republicans and Neo-Liberal Democrats

  It’s looking like Trump’s three nominees on the US Supreme Court, joining three other Republican appointees to give that court its largest reactionary majority in memory  is about to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that gave women the right to an abortion. Such a decision in the current case before the High …

CIA 'Reminds you of the glory of the American Experiment'

What Was CIA Role in Kennedy’s Assassination 58 Years Ago? Biden Continues Cover-Up

  JFK’s Revenge: WikiLeaks Referenced JFK In Its Passphrase, Was He Killed By The CIA? (wearechange.org) and JFK-scatterCIAtoWinds.pdf (ratical.org)   My grandmother’s familiar saying was, “Ignorance is bliss”. She had a point, because most “common” people accept this notion as part of their daily reality. They have learned to do so by watching what “their” …

A warlike nation, the US and the US public have an appalling disinterest in peace:

Let’s Just be Honest and Call November 11 Forgetting Day

Back on November 11, 1918, with the end of World War I, once the most bloody war in history, and with a two-year deadly flu pandemic raging, caused in large part by the war and the rapid spread of the disease by infected troops returning to their homes,  nobody was in the mood to celebrate …

F35A approved to carry two nukes, making it a first-strike weapon:

US about to Make Nuclear War Much More Likely

The US is about to move towards a far more likely first use of nuclear weapons, with word that the Air Force has “completed flight testing” of the cost-and-performance-plagued F35A Lightning fighter, all units of which are being “upgraded” to carry thermonuclear weapons. What this means, as explained in a new article in Popular Mechanics, …

Dropping the shield (followed by an autobiographical note on the writing of this poem)

A memory held in the back Of these aging eyes Is probably more than a memory More like footage of a lost film, The quintessence of A story never understood Until now. There is young so-and-so And another scamp and me In a sandpit Ecstatically undermining The great cuts Left by a backhoe Where the …

They don’t just get more, they bribe politician to let them keep it:

The Rich are Different — Richer than Us and Far Greedier

  F, Scott Fitzgerald is famously said to have once remarked to his pal Ernest Hemingway, “The rich are different from you and me, Ernest,” to which Hemingway is said to have replied, “Yes, they have more money.” Fitzgerald had it right. Particularly these days, when the wealthiest people in the US are not millionaires, …

Ireland Travelogue

Vikings/British Colonialism, Che, Colleague Bonding

[Part 11 of 11] Enniscrone Finian with wife Cristina and their children: Musa (l), Marie, Brigid. Finian and I first encountered one another at King’s College in Cambridge, in 1993. England’s national solidarity committee with Cuba had invited me on a tour to speak about Cuba and my first of six books about the revolutionary …

Ireland Travelogue:

Vikings/British Colonialism, Che, Colleague Bonding

[Part I of II] Imagine, two weeks in a new country since corona set in.  Ireland had just opened for travelers in mid-July. Jette, my companion, and I encountered Ireland’s warm hearts undeterred by cold winds. Of twenty Irish we asked for directions or other assistance, only one ignored us. In that same period, ten …