Donald Trump has had a lifetime fascination with professional wrestling. As most people older than ten know, professional wrestling is entertainment, not a sport. It pretends to be a sport, but it is a carefully choreographed masculine drama in which the winners and losers are predetermined. Professional wrestling seeks attention and cathartic release from macho…
Category: Extremism
On Being Locked-In
The terms lock-in (noun), lock in (verb including different verb forms), or locked-in (adjective) have been around for a while. They have a surprisingly broad range of usages in technical, slang, social, business, medical, religious, and political contexts. Likewise, they have a wide spectrum of connotations, from highly positive to extremely negative. A lock-in can…
Debacle Part III
Yogi Berra once said, “It’s deja vu all over again.” Economic history is repeating itself, although it appears more idiotic than in the past. The Republican Party was once a thoughtful, less radical bunch. They were not in a to-the-death war with the world and found ways to compromise for the good of the nation….
I Stay Away From People Who Distort Reality
When I was a young, impressionable lad, a visitor to my Sunday School class gave us a little inspirational talk meant to elevate a small group of impressionable young boys. I will never forget what he said about selecting friends. He said, “Seek out people who are honest, humble, and of good character.” This one…
Another Unexpected Result of Trade War
While Trump befriends America’s enemies, his tariff wars convert friends into enemies. The headlines are filled with the growing animosity from Canada, Mexico, and Europe. However, let’s not forget our friends in Asia. Japan is currently selling U.S. Treasury bonds in reaction to Trump’s tariff war. So, why do you think we should be concerned?…
Free Speech or the Big Con?
Ostensively, Elon Musk purchased Twitter because he thought it was silencing the voices of his right-wing causes. Elon said he believed in “radical free speech,” meaning no voice should be silenced. He noted that Twitter management and the Deep State were violating the sacred American tenet of free speech. He apparently had already sided with…
Do People in Red States need Medical Doctors?
A quote from a Texas medical doctor: The doctor did not mince words. “When nobody wants to train in Texas, as the physicians get older and retire, there will be no ob-gyns in the state,” she told me. “And that’s when you’ll really see maternal mortality go up.” At the time, I was reporting on…
Chaos Junction
This post was written on December 6, 2024 Why is our Country in Chaos? Long before the 2024 election, I wondered why the American psyche was experiencing a dumpster fire. Friends and relatives stopped talking to each other. Some Americans seemed so foreign to me that I thought either they or I had entered an…
America’s Future: Is it Democracy or Extremism?
Preface While contemplating the divided states of America, I discovered an interesting theory of political behavior called the horseshoe theory. This horseshoe thesis helps explain why American centrists have lost political battles to fringe fanatics over the last 25 years, although 60 to 80 percent of Americans are centrists. I will attempt to place this…
Magnetism and Politics
What do these two Renaissance gentlemen have in common besides their ruffled white collars and facial hair? Although one was a politician and the other a scientist, they both studied and experimented with the forces of alignment, repulsion, and attraction. Introduction Are magnetism and politics analogous? We have all watched a magnet “magically” attract metal…