No need to fear being taken over when your fellow citizens appear increasingly willing to cede autonomy to an overmastering authority. Consider two recent polls where such sentiment emerges. First we consider a surrender to governance by AI, and then recognize a groundswell in support of socialism, primarily amongst the young. In both cases, it isn’t the technology or ideology that’s most alarming, but the willingness to cede personal agency.   Keeping in mind that humans ult

A brisk morning walk as the weather is changing usually brightens my mood. On this morning strolling along through my neighborhood in Houston’s Third Ward, I spy the place my mother lived in 40 or more years ago. And there is the spot at the curb where my car was broken into when I came to see her. Same tree still providing shade – and, at night, cover for “shady” endeavors.   Sheesh! That was 42 years ago, but it really does seem like yesterday. It’s funny that, as I’ve aged

Or did it? The recent socialist upsurge, embodied by the unabashed Islamist Socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, brings with it a rash of irrational agenda items.   Amongst the ideas that show Mamdani’s ignorance of human nature and governing demands are proposals for non-profit city-owned grocery stores, faster, free buses and free universal child care. A refrain of “free” portends a chaos likely to be a hallmark of his tenure in office. Those plans may not see fruition as

Something many of us remember having. Sort of.   When I was a young adult, the world was full of possibilities and I was unburdened by irksome thoughts of insurance rates, taxes, and health. From a point of view characteristic of the latter years of my career, it seems my youthful adulthood was relatively free of responsibilities and vexations.   But I know that’s untrue.   Frugal and ambitious, I lived by way of several jobs from minimum wage delivery driving, restaurant hel

Does our freedom of speech allow for effective dissent - or does it actually mute it? Most of us have heard, if not ourselves expressed, a similar thought. Because we enjoy freedom of speech, a much-touted and today maligned right recognized in the U.S. Constitution’s 1 st  Amendment, along with the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances.   Citizens of the U.S. are accustomed to it; we express coffee shop and internet opinions that are not universa

On death, bots, and the fading human internet A couple of weeks ago, an old friend shuffled off our mortal coil. Bummer. Reflecting on his passing, I started to think of others I’ve known who’ve gone cold. Scrolling through my Facebook Friends list, I counted eleven people who I know are dead. I guess if nobody sees to it that Facebook memorializes you, or no one knows your password, or, for that matter, if none of your associates think to do anything, your FB presence can ca

Self-awareness would be required to answer that, wouldn’t you think?   This train of thought began with pondering AI and the coming of… what? Skynet? Robot overlords? Scenarios have been put forth that often depict the AI achieving a level of heightened consciousness, leading it to conclude that humans are a threat or superfluous.   So, is AI, or are the AIs, going to take over and render us dead or irrelevant, threatening our survival? Many fictional scenarios have been put

But it might not feel like it’s cooling down. There are those amongst us – primarily of the Left – clamoring, via rocks and firebombs, for a rematch of the Civil War. How close are they to drumming up a fever pitch, and how distant is their hoped-for ignition point?   Media focus has been on where the action is, on the ground in Portland, Chicago, and elsewhere, as well as in the courts, where Trump’s assertion of the government's right to protect its facilities and instituti

Following up on my earlier post, A Non-Binary Perspective, I’ll flesh out something I’ve thought, as have many, for quite a few years.

At 18 and a new high school graduate (’71), I left home with a friend and a backpack to hitchhike to the West Coast to check out what the hippies were up to. While there were many memorable experiences, I’ll just touch on a few here.   Big Sur rolled out its considerable charms for us. West Coast beaches and a gorgeous, sunny day, and we were having a laughing and colorful walk along Highway One when, “Hey!” rang out. We were initially confused but finally saw a guy on the op

Although I began my political life identifying as a liberal Democrat, subsequent years revealed to me that the Left represented the antithesis of the individual Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness our constitutional republic was founded to protect.

The FBI now has a new category, Nihilistic Violent Extremism (NVE), that Dr. Gerard Gill  describes “as being motivated by a hatred of...

Hoy en día, las personas utilizan cada vez más la IA para las búsquedas en la web...

An unedited piece from before I had a blog. January 20, 2021 In America Blossoming now, after a long gestation, is a virulent and...

A phobia, in my canvassing of sources, is commonly defined as an irrational fear of something, also often described as an intense and persistent fear. Islamophobia, then, would be an irrational fear of Islam; so, is it irrational to fear Islam?     Life in our world often involves living with irreconcilable differences. Sometimes these issues become muted or even resolved over time. With others, potential resolution is difficult to imagine. Still, we continue to live our live

In the post-Cold War world, we saw a brief period where the U.S. was called the lone superpower. Soon enough, though, the old familiar triad of dominance on the world geopolitical stage reappeared: the U.S.A., China, and Russia - the Soviet proxy, seemingly playing third base this time while China comes into its own.   Looming large as our greatest adversary right now, China merits some attention being paid to its being. A country grounded in Communism, whose basis is antithe

Since Donald Trump has retaken the office of the President about eleven weeks ago, my personal portfolio has dropped notably. And that is...

Towards the end of my time at UT in Austin, I lived with a roommate named Claude – probably the best of all the roommates of my young life. One evening I came home and noticed that the bathroom door was partially open, and there were wood chips scattered around. Being, as I was during some of my college career, somewhat spacey, I thought, “What was Claude doing?” First, a little backstory. Earlier that semester, I had noticed some of what looked like little tiny bite marks on

Previously, we’ve seen many writers refer to Elon Musk’s quote from last year that, with the United States’ reaction to the Russo-Ukraine...

It’s occurred to me, and many, I’d imagine, that the festering racial tensions and systemic racism of which the prattling pundits so often speak are just not that evident in the lives of most.  In the course of daily life, I just don’t see the systemic racism and white privilege that supposedly sustain the “patriarchy.” Should I mention here that I live in Houston’s Third Ward and am hardly a stranger to interacting with people of various ethnicities? What of white privilege?