Jeez, you would think it, yes? After long years of COVID restrictions and a “Green New Deal” – along with the massive government spending, runaway inflation, and a deteriorating economy – and stupid Native American “land acknowledgments” and permissive criminal justice “reform” in big cities with mushrooming murder rates and LGBTQIA2S+ mania and college loan forgiveness, and whatever other excesses propagated by the Democratic Party and Biden Administration – whose frontispiece promised to govern as a moderate, but instead has placated the progressive wing of his party… you would think that voters would be ready to vote the other way – for the Republican Party. As for me, I am…
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Darkness in the Evening, Light the Next Morning: A Lesson to Remember
Friday was Veterans Day. I had the day off so I drove 90 miles down to Orange County to see family and friends. Totally overwhelmed recently while coaching my daughters tennis team and teaching six classes, I had not been there since we returned from the Caribbean in mid-August. A visit was long overdue. So I dropped her off with her cousin at my sister’s house, and I was pretty sure the two 15-year old girls would talk for the next 24 hours straight, excepting a few hours of sleep. Then I went to go visit and walk with my dad, dine with dad and brother, sleep at my brother’s…
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“In What Stumbling Ways a New Soul is Begun”
It is almost like a mantra for me: going off to college is where you can take your first baby steps as an adult – you can move out of your parent’s house and move into a university dorm, you can take harder “more adult” college classes, you can fall-in-love and fall-out-of love – meet new people who broaden your understanding, discover new cities away from where you grew up, see experimental French movies at the student union on Friday night, and come to understand better the wider world beyond your childhood. It is an exciting time of life, when it all seems to lie ahead of a person just…
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When Two Tigers Clash
At my brother’s urging, I have been watching the Netflix series Narcos. In my usual way, it has taken me some seven months to get through eight episodes. Why so slow? I am busy. My wife and daughters tend to monopolize the TV. I am too impatient to sit through extended video. Whatever. But I arrived at a remarkable scene at the end of episode 5 “There Will Be a Future” where Colonel Horacio Carrillo of the Columbian military police and infamous drug trafficker Pablo Escobar have a remarkable phone conversation. Check that scene out for yourself here – – as a representative of the Colombian state Col. Horacio Carrillo…
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The 2022 Mid-Term Elections: I Vote for Divided Government
The midterm elections are only one week away. My dad claimed these would be the “most important elections in his lifetime,” and he said he would be up late watching the returns on TV. My father was heavily invested emotionally in the outcome of the vote – he very much desired that his party would win. He was not alone. For my part, I thought this was not even a presidential election, but an off-year election. Why was this election so important? I care maybe ⅓ as much as my father, but still I have some thoughts. Is this election ultra-critical in American history? I suspect it is just another…
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Waiting for the Hammer to Fall: USTA Re-Ranking December 2022
In approximately seven weeks the United States Tennis Association will update its NTRP ratings for the next year. Much to my shock and chagrin, I was re-ranked at the 5.0 level last year on December 3, 2021. I managed to win my appeal eventually to move back to the 4.5 level, but I am a 4.5 A ranking – “A” for on appeal. I am sort of on probation. So if I had a good season competitively in USTA Flex Leagues during 2022, I could be moved up again. I will know if that is the case in early December. The Sword of Damocles hovers above me, and I am…
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Leave JK Rowling Alone, FFS
I just finished the book Behind Their Screens: What Teens are Facing (and Adults Are Missing) by Emily Weinstein and Carrie James. I read with interest at the end of chapter 6 where four teenagers, self-described as “liberal,” came together for a discussion about whether or not they should discuss politics with those who disagreed with them. Two of them said there is much to be learned by engaging with those who see things differently, and the other two claimed exactly the opposite. The latter claimed you could never engage with such an “enemy” who would “deny your right to exist” and whose ideas “made me feel unsafe” and “hurt…
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Autumn and Anniversaries; Decline and Death: Maggie and Trudy
It is that time of the year, and one way or another I always feel the approach of these dates: October 6th, yesterday, the 2nd anniversary of the death of my stepmother; and October 31st, the day my mother died almost 26 years ago. Fateful anniversaries they are, and I feel them. It does not matter that my mother died so long ago, or that the memories recede and fade with the years. I still remember . And it does not matter that my stepmom was already over 80 years of age and had long struggled with a fatal disease – metastatic breast cancer – although that does color the…
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The All-Or-Nothing Academic Lifestyle
To be a teacher is to live the binge all-or-nothing lifestyle of the student forever. Your calendar is the academic one. You either have final exams and are overwhelmed. Or you have the summer off with little or nothing to do. And I have been doing this for 28 years. Most do the academic lifestyle as college students and then move on. I have stayed my entire adult life. There are pros and cons to this lifestyle, and I have long since accepted the tradeoffs. No regrets. But now I am in the middle of the overwhelmed portion of the year. I teach all day long which is exhausting, and…
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YouTube Is Worried I Might Kill Myself
I received the following communication from YouTube last Saturday night at 11:36 pm: I read this statement with unease. Here is the megacompany YouTube – worth approximately 86 billion dollars and with some two billion users, and owned by an even larger Google company – and they are worried about my “mental health” – someone expressed (a person, a bot, whatever) a concern that something I posted leads them to believe I might harm myself. How strange. The posting in question was an introductory lecture about the history of suicide that I uploaded to YouTube some 11 years ago, as part of an introduction to a unit on euthanasia I…
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“Steady As She Goes, Captain. Steady As She Goes.”
I am sailing the ship of state through a sea of estrogen. Or I feel at times like I am swimming in an ocean of estrogen, and I struggle to keep my head above the surface. Between work and home I am up to my ears in females – teenage girls, in particular. And this sea I swim in is not always a placid and predictable one. There are sudden emotional storms which produce powerful waves of frustration and angst. I often find myself buffeted by these waves. They wash over me. Sometimes they take me completely by surprise. One moment all is calm. Then the opposite. In short, “estrogen…
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Barbara Ehrenreich, Rest in Peace
I saw that Barbara Ehrenreich died three weeks ago. I was saddened. I enjoyed Ehrenreich as an author, although I disagreed with her on just about everything. I especially enjoyed her “Nickel and Dimed” piece of muckraking investigative journalism, and read the first chapter with my economics students each year. I saw that not long before her death, Barbara had published a book which had flown under the radar and I knew nothing of – a “spiritual autobiography,” or something akin. The book was called “Living with a Wild God.” I immediately bought and listened to the audiobook version, read by Barbara herself. It was wonderful to hear her talk…
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Norah Vincent Kills Herself
I read of the death of the author Norah Vincent last week. It was unusual in that she actually died in early July of this year, but the news of her passing was released only a few weeks ago. I enjoyed Norah’s work earlier in this century. She was a lesbian tending towards the libertarian with unconventional and interesting views, and as such I read her work with interest and pleasure. I appreciated the slant of Norah’s mind. I remember reading her best known book about passing for a male, “Self-Made Man,” listening to the audiobook on my way driving north through Santa Barbara on the 101 Freeway to an…
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105 Degrees Out, Sweating Bullets, and Enjoying It
Exercising in Extreme Heat to Put Steel in Your Spine It was approximately 105 degrees outside, according to my phone. This was the hottest ever recorded temperature in Camarillo for September 4th, according to news reports. I was there to play tennis on court one, which was supposedly some ten degrees or so hotter than outside, as the sun reflected off the concrete like a convection oven in the stadium architecture. 105 degrees? 110 degrees? 115 degrees? “Who thought playing tennis today was a good idea?” one of my fellow players asked sarcastically. “That would be me,” I responded. I booked the court and the time a week ago, and…
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Public Health Experts Say Covid Isn’t Over, but the American People Believe Otherwise
I work for the government, so I know what I mean when I say that the government often makes rules so stupid they should be ignored. And the majority of the Covid regulations of the past two years have been stupid in the extreme. Here in California they closed all the parks and tennis courts, and they even tried to close the beach. “Stay home, stay safe!” I rarely stay home and I’m always out exercising: thus it has been all my adult life. So from the beginning I ignored these “stay at home” rules. Here is a telling example: In the height of the lockdowns on Easter of 2020,…
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Three Deaths and a Vicious Knife Attack
All last week I was out of contact with the larger world. No Internet, no newspapers, nada. I was on a cruise in the Caribbean and was mostly in the middle of the ocean, and I loved it! I could just relax and enjoy my vacation. The outside world would still be there when I got back. But when I arrived back in Florida and docked last Saturday morning, I connected to the Internet again and caught up on the news via my iPhone. I was hit with the usual tragedy which the newspaper brings. I read first of all that my acquaintance Carmen Ramirez has been struck and killed…
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Another Year in Frowsy Ventura: An Action Plan Moving Forward for 2023
So in a few short weeks I will go back to work in my 28th year of teaching. My classroom will be full of new students ready for a new semester. And it will be my 23rd at my current school. All of them in the same classroom, no less. The same 70′ by 50′ physical space. So I sit down this morning to think about where I am, what I am doing, and how I might want to make adjustments. If I don’t take this deep inventory soon, I will be too busy to do it. So here it goes. I apologize in advance for the unavoidable length of…
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Grateful for This Intellectual Space: Comfortable in My Own Skin
The U-Shaped Happiness Curve, touted by researchers, claims that the data is clear, across cultures and even species. The numbers show that on average life satisfaction drops during midlife and begins its recovery around age 50, reaching its peak at the end of life. Younger people tend to be happy and the eldery tend to be happy, but persons in their 30s and increasingly into their 40s tend to be miserable. To be in the middle of your life is to struggle, as Dante told us some 900 years ago. I have found the U Shaped Happiness Curve to be real in my own life. Thankfully, I am past the…
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Time to Stretch Your Wings and Fly
I got a late start in the parenting game. I was 36 when I first got married (I was cautious), and I was 39 when my firstborn took her first breaths outside the womb. I was 42 when my second and last child was born. Yes, I am an old dad. I am sure there are many negatives to being an older dad: less available energy, increased grouchiness, and you will die earlier in your child’s life. But there are upsides: you are more mature and settled, additional patience is available, and you can appreciate better “the big picture.” Maybe you have earned some wisdom over the years (and maybe…
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The Demise of Roe v. Wade and a “Summer of Rage”
Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was the penultimate act in driving your doctrinaire radical feminist off the rails. Roe v. Wade is gone, and the feminists are irate. And as I have always hated feminists, I enjoyed the spectacle. No, I’m not talking about hating the sort of “feminist” who express a general solidarity with the female gender in getting a fair shot in the race of life. That sort of feminist is ¾ of all the women I know, and I have no problem with them. They will claim that men will be happier when women are happier, and together the two sexes…
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An Open Letter to Andrew Exum
Dear Andrew, Good morning. I write to you today as the United States Supreme Court releases its New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen decision. I read your article from a few weeks ago in the Atlantic Monthly about guns in American life and would say a thing or two about it. I write to you because you know your way around firearms. You were an Army Ranger officer, trained in the use of firearms, and have led men in combat. You are unlike the typical progressive Democrat who struggles to distinguish firearms from fireworks. So there is a shared understanding which I hope to build on…
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Summer and Bike, At Long Last
When you fail to do something you were supposed to do, it can nag at you. But the longer you put it off, the harder it can be to get around to doing. I have not been to the dentist for over a year, and I almost always make my every-six-month visit. But last year I put off making an appointment with my dentist, put it off again, then a bit more – and before I knew it was 17 months. I knew I had to get in there, but the longer I waited the harder it became to make that call. Putting it off further had become a habit.…
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Tears and Tears and Tears: My Overtired, Overwrought Daughter
I returned home last night from my weekly men’s tennis night to find my younger daughter exhausted and overwrought. Her eyes were ringed red with fatigue, and she sat down at the kitchen table and burst out crying. It took me by surprise. I wondered if something bad had happened to my daughter that day, but then I quickly surmised this was an overtired 12-year old “tween” very possibly with hormones running amok. I grabbed her hands and told her I loved her. I got her older sister and mother to tell her things they admired about her. After a few minutes of unconditional love and support, I wondered how…
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Turning 55-Years Old: The Summer of 2022
So I turned 55-years old yesterday, and my father turns 83 tomorrow; we had our joint birthdays this weekend overlooking the ocean at my father’s house in Laguna Beach. We tend to do this each year during the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Beyond our birthdays, this annual celebratory weekend heralds the beginning of summer. I always look forward to it. I was happy to turn 55-years old. It means I am one year closer to retirement: so getting older is a good, not a bad, thing. But it is true as my father tells it: like a roll of toilet paper unfurling, the closer you get to the end the…
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Am I Too Cautious?
I sometimes think I am. I am a public school teacher, and so I am in a job where I have little control over my working conditions. The traits entrepreneurs need – decisiveness, risk taking, incisive intelligence, competitiveness – don’t necessarily pay off for teachers. It goes the other way, too. The traits teachers need – selfless caring, rock-solid steadfastness, patience in the face of low performance, resilience to withstand poor working conditions – don’t serve entrepreneurs well. So I wonder if I have become over the decades incredibly tolerant of putting up with stuff I shouldn’t have to put up with. Last night I watched a video of Ukrainian…
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On Extremism and the Need to Belong: Shortcuts to Finding Meaning and Purpose
False Prophets of Hope and Ineffectual Shortcuts to Happiness “Extremism means borders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death.” Milan Kundera So I made the mistake last night of reading the 180 page manifesto written by the 18-year old man-child who murdered 11 people and wounded 3 others in Buffalo, New York two days ago. He supposedly explained why he did it, and I was curious. I knew it would probably be a mistake, and it pretty much was. “How much are you really going to learn from this kid barely out of high school ranting about…
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Eh, You Take the Good With the Bad
Almost three years ago I spent much of my summer training my body and preparing my mind for the United States Tennis Association sectionals for Southern California in Costa Mesa, California. I dedicated myself to get ready for the big weekend starting on August 3, 2019. And then it arrived. I played two hard matches and lost both. The first one I might have been able to win but didn’t. The second match I just got blown off the court by clearly superior opponents. It was a long day of hard and discouraging tennis. I had trained all summer to be ready and it was not enough. I don’t think…
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“Bite Your Cheek Until it Bleeds and Say Nothing” — Daddy and Daughter
What does it mean to be a parent? Often I think to serve well as a parent means ideally to be mature, possess self-control, and have good judgment. This might seem self-evident, my dear reader. But it is also vague. What does self-control and good judgment look like in practice? Well, let me be specific: It means to hold your tongue when you are angry with your children, and still speak calmly and refuse to lose your temper. You are bigger than that. You are the adult in the household. You bite your cheek until it bleeds, and you refuse to lash out. Or at least you hope you do.…
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Russia Today — “The saddest geopolitical fact of my adult life”
On the first day of the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, I wrote that I hoped Russian dictator Vladimir Putin “rots in hell” and urged the Ukrainians to send lots of Russian boys “home in body bags.” The Ukrainian armed forces have done that and more in the past 56 days – killing some 7,000 to 14,000 Russian soldiers, and dealing Putin a serious black-eye both militarily and diplomatically. Six days ago the Ukrainians sank the heavy guided-missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship for the Russian Back Sea Fleet. It was the most dramatic naval loss anywhere in the world in over 40 years. I say to the Ukrainians: Good job…
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El Porvenir – “con ganas de aprender y paciencia suficiente cualquier cosa es posible”
(This is the second of a 2 Part Essay. Read Part 1 here.) I have never made much money, taking into account my level of education. Public school teachers are not paid all that much money in the United States. That is one of the many negatives to working as a teacher. I can hear many critics claiming that I make way more money than they do, or more money those who are unequivocally poor. True enough. But for having a Master’s Degree and more, it ain’t much. Almost all my friends and family make more money than I do. There are many other negatives to being a public school…