I couldn’t help but be highly amused by the ongoing success of a television program called simply “Finding Bigfoot”. They never find Bigfoot, of course, but that doesn’t seem to matter; what’s important is that there are always eager beavers who believe they are on “its” trail!
Read More
These essays are meant to appear somewhere in-between the scholarly tone of a footnoted academic work and the freewheelin’ opinionated indulgences expressed in a blog.
Sometimes they lean a little more in one direction than the other but on balance the essays are serious pieces with the occasional misbehavin’ runaway (“Principal’s Memo to Teachers”, “The Dog and the Wolf”). Other essays rise nearly to the level of scholarly purpose: examples include “What Price Privacy? Dear Mr. Scalia”, “Same Sex Marriage: the California Question”, and “Confederate Flag: Yes or No.”
There is a long and noble tradition of essay-writing in our country’s history and the English-speaking world (Mill, Locke, Emerson, Thoreau, Steinbeck, Robert Louis Stevenson and more). I want to join them on that continuum of literature where thoughtful exposition joins together the minds of an author and a reader in a common pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment. As Spock would say: “Live long and prosper!”
Read More
“He [the president] shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” –Constitution, Article II, Section 2.1.
Read MoreThe soul that comes from within blesses death. Let newer souls be seen.
Read More
It’s pretty hard to help others if you don’t know there is a problem or what the historical background to that problem looks like. It’s very hard to know what to do if you don’t first find out what current conditions look like, what kind of proposed solutions have already been tried, or what kind of efforts are currently underway to bring about change.
The betterment of living conditions for Native Americans has never been a simple matter. There are umpteen layers of governmental bureaucracy to navigate for even the simplest policy changes to be implemented.
Besides an unwieldy oversight structure, social reformers must also deal with the general population’s ignorance and indifference toward Native Americans, if not to say outright bigotry and kill-the-Indian syndrome.
Read More
