#54 / Wrecking Ball

   

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The "Opinion" page in the February 19, 2026, edition of The New York Times included an editorial statement by Massimo Calabresi, the title of which reads like this: "Trump Is A Wrecking Ball, And He's Only Getting Started."

I am told you can read the whole statement by Calabresi by simply clicking the link that I have just provided, and that no paywall will prevent that. I certainly encourage you to read Calabresi's statement, and to see what he has to say. 

To summarize his main point, Calabresi says that our current president is disturbing (and destroying) the nation's international relationships, and that "the outlines of his disruption are already clear: the collapse of multilateralism, a shift away from the liberal democratic values established after World War II and an embrace of a might-makes-right approach to national security."

Our current president is asserting that what he says, and what he thinks should be understood as a statement by the nation itself. Obviously, this is a huge misunderstanding of how the United States has actually organized its government. Our president is charged with carrying out and "executing" the laws and directions of Congress. The "president," in other words, is supposed to "do what he's told to do by the Congress," and it is not his job to tell everyone else what to do, and what to think, and what is what.

Of course, it is absolutely understandable that other nations might not get this. It seems like a lot of our own citizens don't get it, either - including hundreds of those citizens who are elected Members of Congress, and who have totally abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities.

It is important that "we, the people," make clear that what our current president is doing, and saying, does not, emphatically, "speak for us" in any official way. Again, it simply must be admitted that we, as citizens, aren't doing as good a job as we should in making this crystal clear. The "No Kings" protests organized by Indivisible are powerful and important, but our individual responsibility is to insure that our local representatives to Congress say and do what WE want them to do, so the world doesn't get the wrong impression of our nation.

We need to get a lot more "political," in other words, if we want to make clear that the current occupant of the White House should be understood for who he actually is - a whack job who is literally taking a wrecking ball not only to our continuing foreign policy goals, but even to our president's official residence, and is acting like what he happens to think is what "we" think!

Not true, right? If we want other nations to understand us (and not to succumb to the improper idea that the "president," whenever the president acts or speaks, is always acting and speaking for the nation as a whole), then Congress should enact laws, and issue statements, that make that clear. 

What our "Wrecking Ball" of a president is saying, and doing, is not to be interpreted as our own statement of national purpose!

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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rise-and-fall-wrecking-ball-180957752/

#53 / Soul To Soul

 

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At the bottom of this blog posting I am providing you with the lyrics to one of those Bob Dylan songs that I listen to as I am walking around town. I think of these songs as my "Memorial Songs," and if you go down to the bottom of this blog posting, and click the link to the title of that song -  "When The Deal Goes Down" - you should be able to listen to the song, while you read along with the lyrics. 

The walking part is optional. 

I particularly like the last two lines of the second verse of "When The Deal Goes Down." As I have said at least once, I have come to understand myself as "being a soul," and "having a body," at least as much as I can see it the other way around. Comparisons are odious, says Alma Bracken Patton, and I'm not going to defy my mother by trying to adjudicate which way of understanding ourselves is the "right" way or the "best" way. They both work, I think. The only thing that doesn't work, for me at least, is to deny the "soul" part, altogether. Whether we "are" a soul, or "have" a soul, our souls are central to our being. Our "souls" are real. 

When I go walking around, I often meet people coming the other way, people who are also walking around. Often, they have dogs! With or without dogs, if we look at each other, as we pass, there is often that "flash" of connection and acknowledgement that brightens the day for both of us. EVEN with strangers! Even with people whom we don't know, and even, when we're especially blessed, when we meet and confront those whom we are prepared to, or already, dislike.

"Soul to soul, our shadows roll." 

Seeing that flash of recognition - of mutual acknowledgment - makes me confident, as Dylan understands, about what's going to happen when "the deal goes down." 

oooOOOooo

When The Deal Goes Down

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light
Where wisdom grows up in strife
My bewildered brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I'll be with you when the deal goes down

We eat and we drink, we feel and we think
Far down the street we stray
I laugh and I cry and I'm haunted by
Things I never meant nor wished to say
The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

The moon gives light and it shines by night
I scarcely feel the glow
We learn to live and then we forgive
O'er the road we're bound to go
More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours
That keep us so tightly bound
You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

I picked up a rose and it poked through my clothes
I followed the winding stream
I heard a deafening noise, I felt transient joys
I know they're not what they seem
In this earthly domain, full of disappointment and pain
You'll never see me frown
I owe my heart to you, and that's sayin' it true
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Copyright © 2006 by Special Rider Music

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https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/when-deal-goes-down/

#52 / What Do You Know About Big Sur?

 

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I am a longtime supporter of the Big Sur Land Trust, which means that I get a copy of its periodic newsletter. The last newsletter I received was dated "Fall/Winter, 2025," and I am showing you, above, what's on the cover. 

Inside, the Big Sur Land Trust is giving you an opportunity (1) To show what you know, and (2) To find out what you don't. The Big Sur Land Trust is doing that by way of a crossword puzzle: 

My bet is that most people are going to find themselves, mainly, in the "learning what I don't know" category. That is certainly where I found myself. If that's where you are, too, Page 14 of the newsletter is where you can "learn something."

Here's where to click to make a contribution to the BSLT!

 

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https://bigsurlandtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/BSLT-FallWinterNewsletter25-Digital.pdf

#51 / The Royal "He"

    

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The following expression is pretty well-known: "The Royal We." Click that link and you will be directed to a Wikipedia entry, explaining both the origin and meaning of this singularly "plural" construction for a term meant to refer to a single individual. 

An article in the February 18, 2026, edition of The New York Times made me think about that "Royal We." The article, by Patricia Cohen, was titled as follows: "Neoroyalism: What It Says About Trump." I am assured that no paywall will prevent you from reading the article, if you click on that link.

We all do know (and that Time Magazine cover, above, helps remind us, should we be tempted to forget) that our current president is fond of postulating that his election as President of the United States is akin to, or equivalent to, his being crowned as "King" of our country. The fact that our country doesn't have "Kings," and was founded, in fact,  after a war fought to eliminate any future royal claim, has never really registered with the current occupant of the oval office. As defined by the Constitution, the "president" is, actually, a kind of "functionary," who is charged with taking orders from, and carrying out the decisions of the Congress. The "Executive" executes laws that are drawn up by others. The president, emphatically, does not issue "Orders" telling everyone else what to do. 

That's the system as established in the Constitution, at least, but our current president chafes under the constraints that the Constitution imposes. We do need to remind him - and (even more importantly) ourselves - that we don't got no "Kings" in this here country. 

The Times' story focuses on one of the prerogatives of kingship that ought not be overlooked, namely, the claim made by monarchs that the nation over which they preside essentially belongs to them as their own, personal "property." What the Cohen article points out is that our current president does seem to think that he is, in fact, entitled to act as the "owner" of everything that is actually "owned" by all of us. 

The East Wing of the White House comes to mind, doesn't it? Well, read that article. There are a number of specifics that should be convincing that our current president has profoundly misunderstood his role in the world, and in our nation, in particular. His parasitic and pathological narcissism is undoubtedly the (or a major) "cause" of our president's confusion about his role in our government, and about his "property" claims. 

What about our confusion? 

"We, the people," don't got no kings around here. The current occupant of our presidential office (yes, that office belongs to "us," the way we have structured our government) is just a "He," not a "We," and all claims to any kind of royal treatment need to be most emphatically denied. 

Mr. Trump's claims and assertions about his presidential prerogativess need to be rejected out of hand. He's a "He," not a "We," and we'd better start making that extremely clear to that upstart among us!

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https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/06/08/trump-time-magazine-cover-king-panel-sot-ctn.cnn

#50 / AI "Helps Out" On A Really "Long" Document

  

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Late last month, I got an email alert. The alert informed me that a paper entitled, "Hannah Arendt And Politics" was available for download. I did download that document, forthwith. It was authored by Maria Robaszkiewicz and Michael D. Weinman.

As those who are familiar with my blog postings know, I am rather preoccupied with "politics," and I think that Hannah Arendt had a number of profoundly important insights about that topic. I didn't know anything about the authors of the article, but I wanted to find out what they had to say. 

The download was free, and when I clicked on it, as a PDF file, the following advisory popped right up, right at the top: 

This appears to be a long document. Save time by reading a summary using AI Assistant. 

How thoughtful, right? I am always happy to discover ways to save time, so I checked how long that document was. Not that long, actually! The PDF that the AI Assistant wanted to summarize for me was only eight pages long. Really, it was only seven pages long, with a very short part of the final paragraph showing up on page eight. 

As it turns out, the PDF was the "Introduction" to the book whose cover is shown above, and the whole book is, indeed, a "long document." But I was being solicited to let an AI agent summarize an eight-page summary, and having now read the eight-page summary, I don't think that any further summarizing by some AI agent would have benefitted me at all. Quite the opposite! 

I have never used AI, at least to date, and I probably never will. The incident just recounted, with an AI agent offering to summarize a short summary, on the basis that I shouldn't have to read a "long" (eight page) document, is an example of why I am not an AI fan and am not an AI user. My entire purpose in writing this daily blog is to let the research and writing that goes into each blog posting help me "think about" things that I have some reason to believe are probably worth the effort. My writing is intended to make me think, not to provide me with a way to avoid doing my own thinking. If I permit an AI agent to provide me with ideas or insights that might have come from my own thinking, had I actually done that thinking myself, that's not a "plus." It's a "minus." 

Why do we think? Among other reasons, to help transform ourselves. At least, that's my belief. That's why I do it, and no shortcuts are possible! A person can't actually "think," themself, if the person involved is asking some agent of Artificial Intelligence to do that thinking for them.

Trying to let some agent of Artificial Intelligence think for us will transform us; I have no doubt about that. I do think that's true. But trying to get the benefit of "thinking," without actually doing any thinking ourselves, is not going to transform us in any good way! 

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https://www.academia.edu/125375436/Maria_Robaszkiewicz_and_Michael_Weinman_Hannah_Arendt_and_Politics_Introduction

#49 / Here's A Homeownership Idea

 

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An article that appeared in the January 19, 2026, edition of The New York Times focused on the legal status of "Fannie" and "Freddie," which the article identifies as "government-controlled mortgage giants." The article had the following headline in its online version: "Big Plan for Fannie and Freddie I.P.O. in Flux as Trump Pushes Affordability." Click the link I have provided to read that article. 

The plan that the article says is now "in flux" was a plan by our current president to have our nation's largest banks sell shares of these two government-controlled mortgage-lending companies on a major stock exchange. As I am understanding this proposal, doing that would give greater control over residential mortgages to private investors, freeing these mortgage lenders from current government controls. 

That does sound just like our current president - more benefits for the already-wealthy. Apparently, however, our current president is now having some second thoughts. "Fannie" and "Freddie," the two mortgage lending companies discussed in the article, were taken over by the federal government after the 2008 financial crisis, as a way to prevent their collapse and further disruption of the housing market. Maybe our current president is getting the picture that this might well happen again, if federal control is now relinquished, and that this kind of thing would not play well in the upcoming, 2026 and 2028 elections. 

Thinking about mortgage financing under the current arrangements made me realize that there is a real opportunity to do something meaningful about housing affordability that has not yet been tried, at least to the best of my knowledge, and that might well have a dramatic effect on preventing the kind of housing price escalation that has been so evident in the last twenty or thirty years. My personal case is a good example of what has happened. A two-bedroom home my wife and I purchased in the 1970's cost less than $50,000 when we bought it. Several years later, we then expanded that home by adding two more bedrooms, boosting its then value to about $100,000. The home is now worth well over a million. 

Hooray for me, right? Well, maybe, but ordinary income workers can no longer live in my town. I certainly couldn't afford to live here, myself, if my wife and I hadn't been able to buy our home back when we did.  

Is there anything we can do to stop this kind of ruthless inflation of housing prices, which is going on all over the nation, and which is making it ever more impossible for any person who has an average income to buy a home (or to rent one, either)? Well, let's be honest. Not under our current system. There is no system of "price control" for housing, so housing goes to those who can pay the most for what is available. The "rich," in other words, will always outbid those who aren't, and if the rich want to buy homes on the market, they're going to win out over those who aren't so rich, and who are just ordinary working people looking for a home. 

Seeing homes as "a good investment," which they have surely been, the well-to-do, and "private capital," are increasingly taking control over more and more real estate. The president's plan, as outlined above, would only make things worse, if I am understanding it correctly.

Is there a way to make things better, instead of worse? Here's my thought. 

What if a home were not an "investment?" The wealthy are investing in homes because they think that they will be able to sell them, later, for significantly more than inflation. They can rent them in the meantime. What happened to my home is an example of what's happening, and this is happening everywhere in the nation, of course, and is especially happening in places like Santa Cruz, where my home is located, since this is such a desirable place to live. 

When you go out to buy a home in Santa Cruz, you aren't bidding against other local residents and local workers. You're bidding against people from all over the United States, who earn a lot more than you do. That's why simply building "more" doesn't reduce the price. If the number of "buyers" was fixed, and more housing was built, prices would stabilize. However, the number of "buyers" is virtually infinite. Not only would those living throughout the entire United States, and in fact the entire world, be likely to "outbid" local residents and workers, "investors" from the world over would be competing against  the local worker-resident, too. 

More housing built simply does not bring the price down. Those who put their faith in "supply and demand," with more "supply" supposedly helpful in lowering the price, are badly mistaken when we start talking about Santa Cruz (and places like Santa Cruz). The new supply is minuscule, compared to the untapped, huge, worldwide "demand," and local working residents just can't outbid the rich. This is not just a Santa Cruz problem, but we have one of the worst housing markets in the entire nation, and that is clear proof that building more doesn't solve the problem.

There is, though, I think, something that could make things better.

What if the price of a home did not increase over time? What if the price of a home when sold was the same price as the price it was when the home was purchased? Well, "investors" would not have any reason invest in homes, because the price they could sell for later would be the same price as the price they bought the home for (always taking inflation into account, though). Investors would go out and put their money into something that they thought would make money, as opposed to buying a home, which would not increase in value as time passed. 

But how could that actually be arranged? The government can't just pass a law to that effect. That would be an unconstitutional taking. However, if purchasers of homes had to encumber their home, when they bought their home, and put such a price restriction on the home, then that would be constitutional. And what if that is what mortgage lenders demanded? 

In other words, what if "Fannie" and "Freddie" conditioned their loans on the purchaser placing such an encumbrance on the home? If they were controlled by the government (working, at least supposedly, in all of our best interests), a mortgage lender could be required to provide purchase money to an ordinary income homebuyer, at a very advantageous interest rate (say 2.5%, instead of, say, 6%) on the condition that the homebuyer place a perpetual encumbrance on the property being purchased, ensuring that any future sale of the property would have to be at the same price for which the property was being purchased, plus inflation. 

Prices would come down. Private investors would not be competing with ordinary working folks. Only people who wanted a home to live in would be interested in buying a home

This is just an idea to think about - and that's just what that article in The Times made me do. It made me think about that.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/business/fannie-and-freddie-ipo.html

#48 / It's Time To Revive The Teach-In Movement

     

Hans Morgenthau leads a debate on Vietnam that was broadcast 

to teach-ins across the nation on May 15, 1965

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Dear Friends,

I think it is time to revive the "Teach-In" movement. 

An article from The Nation magazine, published during our current president's first term in office, suggested a need to regalvanize the "Teach-In" movement that had such a powerful impact on this nation during the 1960's. If that "Teach-In" movement was appropriate way back then, it is perhaps even more appropriate and necessary today, don't you think?

Let's start educating and reminding ourselves about what "democracy" and "self-government" actually demand. Let's stimulate and provide some powerful "refresher courses" on what our Constitution contemplates and requires of us, as citizens.

Does this sound like a good idea to you?

If it does, why not communicate with the college or university which you atttended, or from which you graduated? Submit a letter to the student newspaper, for instance! Tell your children, or grandchildren, or anyone else you know who has any current affiliation with an institution of higher learning that this "Teach-In" idea is worth reviving - that this is an idea whose time has come (again). 

Here's my letter to the Dean of the Stanford Law School:

Dear Dean Triantis:

I graduated from Stanford Law School in 1969, and I have benefitted greatly from the education I received there - way back when the Law School was still located on the original Stanford Quad.

This letter is to suggest - to "urge," in fact - that you, and faculty members, and interested students, make arrangements to hold a "Teach-In" - or many "Teach-Ins" - at the Law School, or more generally on the Stanford campus, to start helping current students confront the distressing failures of the Congress, and many of our elected officials, to protect and defend what most call "democracy," and what I usually call "self-government." 

As I hope you agree (though it is, in fact, distressing to admit it), our Constitutional Republic is under attack - an attack coming from within - and many people are confused about what's happening, and what we can, and should, be doing in response. The faculty and students at Stanford Law School should be speaking out, and providing good advice and counsel!

I hope you think that this would be a good idea. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance. All best wishes!

Sincerely,

Gary A. Patton 

 

 

 

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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/teach-ins-helped-galvanize-student-activism-in-the-1960s-they-can-do-so-again-today/

#47 / Stammtisch

 

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I was born in 1943. Something else of importance happened that year, as I found out from an article in the December 20, 2025, edition of The New York Times. Here's a link to the article I am talking about, "A Weekly Gathering for Those Who Fled The Nazis Ends After 82 Years." 

A brief excerpt is below:

In 1943, two artist friends who fled the Nazis and landed in New York City decided to host a weekly meeting with other refugees. At this stammtisch, as they called it, they could talk freely, in German, about art and politics and the culture they missed from home. 

Week after week, the stammtisch moved around the many German restaurants on the Upper East Side. And it kept going, even after the war ended and one of the founders died. And when their regular restaurants began to close, they met in a nearby apartment, and then another, and another. 

For 82 years, they spoke German together virtually every week until last Saturday, when the Oskar Maria Graf Stammtisch finally decided to disband.

If the paywall policies of The Times don't prevent you from doing so, I am recommending that you read the article. It can be (and should be) an inspiration. You can, as I have mentioned before, get free access to The Times if you happen to be able to obtain a library card from the Santa Cruz County Library. 

Your individual personal power, added to the personal power of other persons, can make it possible for you to change the world. And I hope you don't doubt that! Our actions do, in fact, change the world - both when we act individually and when we act with others. If we want to do the latter - which is really what people need to do, if they are serious - then we need to get together in a group, meet regularly (weekly is best), and meet in person. I keep insisting on this, since I have personally experienced the power of this kind of activity in my own life, and the difference that this kind of collective activity has made in the life of the community where I live. I know that this formula works. 

The challenges ahead for our nation, state, and local community are really daunting. And since they are, we really do need to "Find Some Friends" and "Think Like A Lion." Reading about the Stammtisch profiled in The Times was truly inspirational to me.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/nyregion/nazi-refugee-stammtisch.html

#46 / Another Posting On A Familiar Assertion

  

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Relatively recently, I have been trying to reference religious themes in those blog postings that are scheduled to appear on Sundays. That's fine, of course, but then why does my comment today - scheduled for a Sunday - feature a picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our thirty-second president? President Roosevelt is not generally considered to have been any kind of "religious" figure. In fact, he was really "political" - although I do want to report that my grandparents, on my mother's side (Durward and Alma Bracken) did consider Roosevelt to have been a kind of political "savior," given my grandparents' experiences in the Great Depression.

Well, here's why Roosevelt came to mind, as I thought about highlighting (again) what is generally considered to be a "religious" assertion - an assertion found in the Bible something like eighty different times. I speak, of course, of the following assertion: "Fear Not." If you click that link, you'll see a blog posting that I wrote about ten years ago, dedicated to the "Fear Not" commandment. I have mentioned the same thing many times since. "Fear Not" is both a political principle and a statement of faith. If you click that second link to the "Fear Not" assertion, you'll get fifteen different Bible verses about overcoming fear.

Fear immobilizes. Fear paralyzes. Fear incapitates, and fear prevents us from taking action, when action is called for. If you don't sense a reference, here, to the United States Congress in the time of the Trump presidency you haven't been paying attention to what's happening in our politics today. "Fear" has a powerful impact on our ability to take political action - and thus to fulfill our commitment to a politics "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Beyond its religious bonafides, the call to "Fear Not" has immense "political" significance, and that is why President Roosevelt, in this first Inaugural Address, in 1933, told a fearful public that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." 

For many of us - and probably for all of us, at times - our fear of death is what prevents us from acting when we are being "called" to take action. That idea - that we are, during our lives, sometimes "called" to do something, and, specifically, called to do something that will expose us to known or unknown dangers - is, I would say, a "religious" concept. I'd like to think that many of those who might read this blog posting have had this experience. It is, or can be, anyway, a truly "religious" experience, being called to take action in the world, as we are beckoned to respond to pain, suffering, and moral challenges - and then responding to that call, setting aside what are often quite realistic fears, to do what is being called for. 

I felt "called" to refuse induction into the armed forces, during the Vietnam War, and I heeded that call. I did refuse. That does not mean that I was "unafraid." I was afraid of what would happen to me if I did what I thought I should do, but the Biblical (and political) injunction to "Fear Not" ultimately supported my action to respond to that call of conscience.

When called to act, taking the action to which you are called is the response demanded. It is easier to do that, obviously, if you can do it "fearlessly," but when action is demanded, we can respond "fearfully" as well as "fearlessly." The second way is best, as President Roosevelt realized, as he told us that the only real fear we need to have is "fear itself." 

To accomplish a "fearless" response, when we are called to act, it is death itself that must be faced fearlessly. That is why President Roosevelt's message is such an appropriate one for this Sunday! 

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https://www.biography.com/political-figures/a65191884/franklin-d-roosevelt-facts

#45 / Three Cheers For The Potluck Life

 

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Below, I am providing a link to an Opinion essay by Matt Hongoltz-Hetling, published in the Saturday, December 6, 2025, edition of The New York Times. Online, the essay is titled, "This Centuries-Old Tradition Is Needed Now More Than Ever." In the hard-copy version, which is how I read the article, on a Saturday morning, the headline on the Hongoltz-Hetling essay is as follows: "Can The Potluck Cure America's Loneliness Crisis?"

Are you aware of this "Loneliness Crisis" that Hongoltz-Hetling is talking about? If not, a round of applause for you and the way you are living! I think there is one! And "loneliness" is not, of course, any late-breaking affliction. Back when I was an undergraduate, I vividly remember reading David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd, which was published in 1950. 2025 minus 1950 adds up to seventy-five years of loneliness, if you accept the reality of what both Riesman and Hongoltz-Hetling are talking about. 

My prescription for a healthy politics - the kind of politics that ends up with genuine "self-government" - absolutely depends on small groups of people, meeting in "real life," and deciding, together, to make the applicable governmental bodies (national, state, and local) do what the citizens want. 

"Loneliness," in other words, which dissociates individuals from the collective reality of our "common world," is death to what most people call "democracy." 

So, set up and participate in frequent potluck meetings (and neighborhood barbeques in good weather will work, as well). That's a piece of "political" advice, but sociologists, from David Riesman on down, will totally agree that this is a good prescription for both individual and social good health. We are, truly, "in this [life] together," and we can find out that this is true, and can start acting, together, to accomplish the things we both want and need to do, after we take the time to sit down to eat with our friends and neighbors - and start talking all about it! 

So, with thanks to Hongoltz-Hetling and his timely column, let's give three cheers for the potluck life!

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/opinion/potluck-community-loneliness.html

#44 / Common Sense, II

  

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On Monday, January 12, 2025, The New York Times published an article by Jennifer Schussler. Her article was titled, "The Founding Father Whose Pen Became A Mighty Weapon." Click that link to read it for yourself. I am told by The Times that the article may be considered my "gift" to you, and that no paywall will prevent you from reading every word. I hope that's true!

If you have any question about which "Founding Father" Schussler is writing about, and if you don't immediately recognize the person who is pictured above, let me eliminate your need to guess. That is Tom Paine, pictured. He is the person profiled by Schussler. Common Sense is not the only thing he wrote, but it is his most famous writing. It "went viral" in 1775-1776, as an unsigned pamphlet, and Wikipedia tells us that it had the "largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history."

Paine wrote Common Sense 250 years ago, and it is still in print. If you want to read the book (which is recommended), you will have to purchase it yourself - or visit a local library. My bet is that your library will have it, and will let you check it out. 

Schussler's article makes clear that while Paine's pamphlet was widely read in its time, and helped push the nation to its Declaration of Independence, Paine's ideas were not fully appreciated then, and are not, really, fully appreciated now. Read the article as my "gift" and find out about that. You can consult Bob Dylan, too, whose song about Tom Paine, "As I Went Out One Morning," is pretty enigmatic. As is often true with the truth, it's hard to get a secure grip on exactly what "the truth" actually is - and on what it demands of us. 

And what is demanded of us right now - politically, I mean? It may be time for a Common Sense, II, and another revolution. Given what I'm reading each day in the newspapers, our governing authorities, like the Crown and its consorts, in 1776, have way overstepped their place and position. 

Is it time for a Common Sense, II? I have (implicitly) raised this idea before. I'm thinking about it. 

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#43 / The Great Wealth Transfer

     

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I read an article in the Wednesday, February 11, 2026, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle that made me think. The article was titled, "Will You Be Part Of The Great Wealth Transfer?" Just in case a paywall might prevent you from reading that article, here is a link to another one, with a similar title: "The Great Wealth Transfer Is Coming: Here’s How Much Younger Americans Expect To Inherit From Their Parents."

If that Chronicle link does work, you'll be given a chance to respond to an online questionnaire, outlining your thoughts about the topic. In fact, if you are open for it, there is the possibility that a Chronicle reporter might call you for a follow-up. 

If you have lived in a community like Santa Cruz, California, and if you bought a home in that community in, say, 1971, and have lived there ever since (which is my personal situation), you have probably come into that "great wealth" that the headlines mention. I did the math, and find that the home that my wife and I purchased in 1971 is now worth sixty-four times what we paid for it. We do not think of ourselves as possessing "great wealth," but when your modest single-family home, built in the 1940's, is now worth above a million dollars (based on current market comparisons), questions do arise. 

The questions that arise in my mind have to do with economic and income inequality and the future of our local community, the state, and the nation. What has happened is not good, in my estimation, and those "younger Americans" who will probably receive what at least used to be "great wealth," are not, necessarily, to be envied. Even after the "Great Wealth Transfer," as the headlines name it, will the children who inherit this "great wealth" actually be able to move into those now incredibly pricey family homes, in places like Santa Cruz?

Likely not, I believe, and our nation is going to have to confront the huge inequalities that now massively distort our society, and that aren't going to disappear "automatically." We (that future "we") are going to have to do something about what is a much more a huge "problem" than a wonderful and beneficial "wealth transfer." 

We can do that, I am convinced, but only if "we" remember that the word "we" is a plural. 

We're in it together, and we are going to have to come together to get out of what I'd name as the "Great Wealth Dilemma." 

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https://www.fastcompany.com/91195489/great-wealth-transfer-how-much-younger-americans-inherit-baby-boomer-parents

#42 / Imagineering

 

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The "all-new" ship that I have pictured above is called the Disney Adventure. If you click that link, you can book a voyage, and Disney promises that it will be an "unforgettable 3- or 4-night holiday." The first voyage of this new ship is scheduled to set sail from Singapore sometime in March of this year.

I certainly knew about Disney films and television offerings, and I knew about Disney theme parks, but I didn't really know about Disney's expansion into the cruise ship business until I read about it in The Wall Street Journal. 

As it turns out, "theme parks and cruises have overtaken television as Disney’s biggest source of profits, and the company is counting on them to fuel its growth for the rest of this decade and beyond. Disney is investing $60 billion in theme parks and cruise ships through 2033—nearly double what it spent in the prior decade." It is, of course, no surprise that The Walt Disney Company is fundamentally a money-making proposition, and that it is not really a "Magic Kingdom." Disney currently has seven ships in its cruise line, and is aiming to expand to thirteen. 

Here is a link to the article that provided me the information I have just relayed to you. The article is titled, "The 3,000-Person Team Working in Secret To Create Disney Magic." Unfortunately, given the likelihood that a paywall will prevent access for non-subscribers, I can't promise you that the link I have just made available will let you "read all about it." You can, however, give it a try. 

What most interested me in the article was its discussion of that 3,000-person team that is spearheading Disney's effort to boost its theme park and cruise ship revenue. That team has a name. Those who participate are called, "Imagineers," and they "operate largely in secret, working in unmarked warehouses with curtains surrounding the most sensitive work." They sign nondisclosure agreements, too. According to The Journal, Disney's Imagineers have been both "a source of pride for their creative genius and frustration due to their insular culture and budget-busting spending."

As those reading this blog posting of mine probably know, many people are now seeing themselves as "Influencers." They are looking for ways to "monetize" podcast presentations, and short videos, using online platforms like Tik-Tok, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Well, here's a thought. What about some of us trying to become "Imagineers." I am not talking about massive Disney-scale budgets (budgets that the Disney "Imagineers" apparently disregard, with respect to the actual expenses they incur). I'm suggesting a "non-profit" version of the "Imagineers" idea, and I mean "non-profit" in a generic sense, and am not suggesting that setting up a special non-profit corporation would be needed. 

I am suggesting, once again, that small groups might form, meet regularly and in-person, and determine to practice a "politics of imagination." What if.....? There are lots of great projects and activities to imagine, don't you think?

I know, in fact, that a group has formed, right here in Santa Cruz County, to imagine a new way for us to relate to the "World of Nature," giving legal rights to the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the lands and the ocean that sustain us. Here's a link to the website set up by this new group: "Rights of Nature, Santa Cruz." Some of those reading this blog posting may want to get involved with this movement. 

And what else can we imagine? A lot of things, don't you think?

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https://www.wsj.com/business/media/disney-cruise-rides-characters-imagineers-adventure-b5c03c1d

#41 / Adoration Of The Present

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The picture above comes from one of Katie Roiphe's "Personal Space" columns in The Wall Street Journal. Specifically, the picture comes from Roiphe's column published in the Saturday-Sunday, January 10-11, 2026, edition of the paper. Roiphe titled that column as follows: "Why 20-Somethings Are Trading Their Vapes For Cigarettes." 

The Journal's website tells us that Roiphe's "Personal Space" column "explores love, life, relationships and current cultural mores," and lets us know that Roiphe is the director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University. The Journal also tells us that she is the author of several books, including The Power Notebooks, In Praise of Messy Lives, and The Violet Hour. 

Wikipedia provides additional information about Roiphe's publications, calling out The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus (1993), Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End (1997), and Uncommon Arrangements, a 2007 study of writers and marriage.

What struck me most about Roiphe's column on how young people, today, seem to be returning to smoking cigarettes was her conclusion that while smoking was, indeed, "unhealthy," and should not, therefore, be celebrated, she nonetheless had sympathy for this new trend:

I find myself watching all these young smokers with mixed feelings. I want my students and children’s friends to be healthy, but I also understand the gesture, the fashionable nihilism, the hedonism, the why not. We could use a little more adoration of the present. Though I still hope the cigarettes are just a phase (emphasis added).

I have a long tradition, in my blog postings, of celebrating "the present," because it is in "the present" that we can act. Observing what's happening is great, and that occurs in "the present," too, but it is in "action," not "observation" that we create the world in which we live. 

"Adoration" of the present, in other words, strikes me as the celebration of observation over action, and Roiphe's use of that term spurred me to remember one of my very first blog postings. I have published one blog posting, each day, since 2010, which means that I have been filing these blog postings for fifteen years. Here is a link to my blog posting from October 14, 2010, which I titled, "Now." 

George Fox, the first Quaker, said the following, his words having been featured a number of times in my periodic writings since that first time, in October, 2010: 

You have no time but this present time; therefore prize your time for your soul's sake.

I honor Roiphe's description of our current cultural mores, but I prefer Fox, who reminds us that it is "now," while we live, that we can act. 

And how we act, and that we will act can (as Robert Frost might have said) make all the difference!

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https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/why-20-somethings-are-trading-their-vapes-for-cigarettes-c623e95d

#40 / Facts? Forget About The Facts!

   

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Did you know that the Central Intelligence Agency has, for the last sixty years, published a so-called "World Factbook," on an annual basis, and that this publication has provided "detailed figures on birth and death rates and major exports, relied upon first by government agents and eventually researchers, educators, journalists and more?"

I didn't know this - at least I didn't know it until I read an article published in The New York Times on Saturday, February 7th. That article, linked right here, announced that this publication has now been abruptly terminated, with no reason given. 

Perhaps, it is suggested in the article, the "World Factbook" is now just duplicative, since anyone with access to an Internet browser can probably get whatever information they might want, or need, by simply typing a request into a search bar. 

Maybe that's it. I can't help but think, though, that our current president doesn't really put much value on "the truth," or on "the facts," and that having the facts so readily available, in an authoritative governmental publication, would inevitably get in the way of our current president's habit of asserting as true whatever the president would like the facts to be.

So, why has publication of the "World Factbook" been so abruptly terminated? I am betting that our current president had something to say about that, and for someone who certainly doesn't want his many untrue assertions contradicted by a government publication that provides access to the real facts, getting rid of this source of genuine "facts" probably seemed way overdue.

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https://www.amazon.com/CIA-World-Factbook-2026-2027/dp/151078604X/ref=sr_1_3

#39 / A Part Of The Main

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Anthony McNaught is pictured above. His friends didn't really call him "Anthony." They called him "Ant." On February 4, 2026, I read Ant's obituary in The Santa Cruz Sentinel. He was born on Februry 13, 1952, and he died on January 22nd of this year.   I didn't really know Ant at all well, but I did have a chance to talk with him, on several occasions, when mutual friends threw dinner parties to which we were both invited. Ant's death, from pneumonia, was very sudden and I think quite unexpected. When I got the word, from our mutual friend, I was startled. Ant was younger than I am, and he was in vigorous health, at least so it appeared. 

Ant was an artist. His obituary tells us that he studied fine art at Christie’s, in London, after which he headed up fine art departments for several big American auction houses, before starting his own gallery, McNaught Fine Art. Ant's obituary lets us know that he loved finding beautiful paintings, making art, and spending time with the people he loved - specifically including his son, Michael, whom Ant mentioned to me in every conversation I ever had with him. Ant also loved to write and perform his songs.  He recorded two albums in Nashville, first “Apache Lane” (2011) and then “Feast of Stone” (2017).

In recent years, I find that I often read the obituaries that show up in The New York Times, and in our local newspaper here in Santa Cruz County, the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Ant's obituary is where I actually found out about Ant. As I said at the start, I didn't really know him well, though we had crossed paths several times. The obituary printed in The Sentinel, on February 4th, announced that a memorial mass for Ant would be held on February 5th (last Thursday) at Star of the Sea Church. I knew that our mutual friends would certainly be there, and I decided to go. 

At the church, those who came were given a little card:

Stella Maris 

(Star of the Sea)

Anthony McNaught

February 13, 1952 - January 22, 2026

Peace I leave with you,

my peace I give unto you; 

not as the world giveth,

give I unto you.

Let not your heart be troubled,

neither let it be afraid.

John 14:27

Love is all there is, it makes 

the world go 'round / Love and

only love, it can't be denied.

Bob Dylan

I was not surprised to fiind that Bible verse on the card I was handed, but I must admit that I was a little surprised to see the quotation from Dylan's song, "I Threw It All Away." The fact that Dylan was featured at this very Catholic service for Ant is an indication that I truly didn't know Ant very well. We would have talked about Dylan, I am sure, had I known that Ant knew something about him, or cared about him. We might even have gotten into a discussion of my own hope that Dylan's songs will be featured at any memorial service that might be held for me, after I have died. 

Going to Ant's memorial mass - going to a mass for someone I really didn't know very well at all - made me think about all the other obituaries I have read, since I have gotten in the habit of reading them. In our local paper, I sometimes see an obituary for someone I know, but mostly the obituaries I read are for people whom I don't know - really, people just like Ant, though in his case, I did at least meet him, and get to speak to him, during the time he was alive. 

Who are these people in those obituaries, people with whom we have lived, and who now have died? John Donne's wonderful poem came to my mind: 

For Whom the Bell Tolls
        by John Donne
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Each one of us is precious - and unique. We are each special. You. Me. Ant. Everyone. We don't even really know most of those who are living with us, nearby - neighbors, acquaintances, friends.

When we think of each other.... Let's Ring Them Bells! 

In celebration. In gratitude. With joy!

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https://www.forevermissed.com/ant-mcnaught/about