Running has been a big part of my life since I was a kid. At first it was biking — using my dirt bike to get to my friends houses, or going up and down the gravel roads of the idiosyncratic and progress-resistant community I lived in as a child, Killam’s Point in Branford, Connecticut.Continue reading “Running on Empty”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Freezing Senior Citizens’ Property Taxes in Branford
During the election for first selectman, Josh Brooks made an interesting pledge. “I am proposing to freeze property taxes for qualified Branford seniors,” he wrote on his campaign website, and shared on social media. Is such a plan feasible? Yes — other towns have already implemented some version of it. In fact, Branford has an interestingContinue reading “Freezing Senior Citizens’ Property Taxes in Branford”
Changes to My Social Media Policy
Last year, even before a presidential election that was extremely unpleasant (both in its conduct and outcome), I had resolved to leave Twitter. Under Musk, the platform had become an unflushable toilet bowl filled with lies, insults, slander, propaganda. Mistruth after vomitous mistruth piled up in Twitter until that’s all one could see. After monthsContinue reading “Changes to My Social Media Policy”
What Would it Take To Secure and Militarize the U.S. Border?
People talking about border security do so without seriously intending to fully secure the U.S. border, because to do so would be incredibly costly.
In Search of Faith
1937 was not one of humankind’s better years. The Japanese invaded China and set about massacring POWs and civilians. Warplanes with the Nazi German “Condor Legion” bombed Guernica on behalf of nationalist (fascist) Spain , part of a brutal civil war raging there. Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Atlantic, the Hindenburg airship exploded, and strikingContinue reading “In Search of Faith”
Branford: Big Town, Small Town
If you ask most Republicans and many independents whether they believe government and bureaucracy ought to get bigger at a local, state, or (especially) federal level they will say “no.” Government ought in many cases to stay the same size or to shrink. The most extreme conservatives who are still recognizably part of a modernContinue reading “Branford: Big Town, Small Town”
The Murder of Marinka
I spent much of my time on the Ukrainian front line between 2015-17 in Marinka. The day after Christmas, 2023, I learned that the town’s remains had been fully occupied by Russia Christmas of 2023, Russia finally completed its destruction of the town of Marinka. Without Russia’s invasions in 2014 and more recently in 2022Continue reading “The Murder of Marinka”
On the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
In Kyiv you live under the sword of Damocles. Every day: what if Russia starts bombing using jets, what if they nuke, what if they invade from Belarus. It is very difficult to live under those conditions. If you don’t have milk or eggs you go out to the store to buy them. If youContinue reading “On the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”
Against Expanding Tweed
It’s the 21st century. After centuries of struggle and scientific advances in medicine — of one painful step forward followed by numerous staggering steps back — we’ve arrived at a moment in history where we know in detail the things that can hurt a person, and how, if not always why. We know the various ways thatContinue reading “Against Expanding Tweed”
Thoughts on the partisan attack on Congress, and Euromaidan
In the winter of 2014, protestors filled Independence Square in Kyiv. Upset that Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, had refused to open the country further to European trade and commerce, hundreds, then thousands, and ultimately millions of people converged on Kyiv and rose up throughout the country, battling police and military units to have their voicesContinue reading “Thoughts on the partisan attack on Congress, and Euromaidan”
The Local Blind Spot 