“The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”


George Orwell

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Esther

Image
  Ramblings of a Retired Mind Esther A Move and a Memory Seven years ago, my wife and I left Chicago—the only home we had ever known—and moved to Polson, Montana. Retirement and the pull to be near our daughter and four grandchildren brought us West. Leaving behind friends, family, and the familiar rhythm of city life was no small undertaking. Before the move, I found myself at my parents’ graves, saying a quiet goodbye. I knew they weren’t truly there, but I felt the need to honor their lives and the life I was leaving behind. Graves matter. They are touchstones of existence, proof that a life once was. Too many leave this world without such a marker. The Pull of Genealogy Decades ago, my wife and I became absorbed in genealogy. With much of the older generation already gone, we pieced together names, dates, photographs, and fragments of stories. We visited cemeteries, photographing gravestones as if gathering the last whispers of lives once lived. But some left no trace at...
Read more

You are wrong, I am right, even if I am wrong

Image
  Ramblings of a Retired Mind You are wrong, I am right, even if I am wrong   Yesterday, I was minding my own business in the right lane when a car veered in front of me from the left—zero turn signal. The urge to honk or extend a specific finger was overwhelming. Instead, I chose peace, breathed deep, and turned up the radio. Moments later, a massive pickup truck came flying down the left lane. Before I could even think, where’s a cop when you need one? The truck cut hard into the right lane, cutting off my original offender. Clearly, turn signals are a lost art form. The best part? The first driver, the one who had just cut me off, was absolutely furious. He lay on his horn, completely blind to the irony. It perfectly captures the new normal: "Rules for thee, but not for me." We see this hypocritical projection in politics every day, where everyone accuses the opposition of the exact dastardly things they are doing themselves. I don't know when this became...
Read more

Death Among Us

Image
                                             Ramblings of a Retired Mind                                            Death Among Us   Living With Death, Choosing Life Nothing stirs emotion quite like death. It is the one certainty we all share, yet it arrives without a timetable or warning. We never know when it will come—only that it will. We encounter death constantly. Sometimes it touches our lives directly; other times it reaches us through news headlines and distant tragedies. We witness loss involving strangers and people we love, and the difference between those two experiences is profound. The Distance of Public Tragedy Recent weeks have been filled with reminders of how fragile life can be. Acts of violence driven by hatred, live...
Read more