The last few days, I have been pointing to the Opioid epidemic which did not just start with Fentanyl. It has been ongoing before the introduction of Qxycontin by the Sadler’s Purdue Pharmaceuticals. In 1996. It was advertised by Purdue as a nonaddictive drug by misquoting Doctors Jane Porter and Herschel Jick’s letter to NEJM […]

It was, maybe, the late eighties and I was at Oscar Mayer buying packaging for products such as Lunchables, hot dogs, bacon, etc. and the labels. This buy included the graphics. Management thought they were overwhelming me. Indeed, I was thriving having commandeered on OM Wiener mo-jet to visit suppliers in Minnesota and Massachusetts. I […]

The civilized American peoples were here long before the colonists arrived from other countries. This is the story of some discovering their past in what was called America after the arrival of the new people. Researchers reveal U’s painful past with Minnesota’s Indigenous people, MPR News, Dan Kraker and Melissa Olson. A massive new report […]

This is relatively old news from almost a year ago. Old news about the media reporting versus reality. Politico carried an interesting article on the direction modern media is taking. The speculation regarding changes of staff and tone at CNN bring to mind the importance of ownership regarding media. There is another story here and […]

April 8, 1865, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox-Richardson On April 8, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant was having a hard night.  His army had been harrying Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s for days, and Grant knew it was only a question of time before Lee had to surrender. The people in the Virginia […]

I had a Facebook discussion yesterday about statistics. At one point, my interlocutor posted “You should know better than anyone that statistics can be manipulated to actually show the opposite of what is real.” Well, just to be clear, that’s not a problem with statistics, that’s a problem of motivated reasoning, which is not a […]

Steve Hutkins and former N.C. Postmaster Mark Jamison have been following the issues with the USPS, its reorganization, and the attacks on it by politicians and commercial interests. This particular post is detailing parts of the reorganization of it. As you will read, the plan is to establish distribution centers where Mail Delivery Personnel would […]

Lets get this out of the way first; Speaker 1 is Charlie Sykes of “The Bulwark Podcast“. Speaker 2 is former Federal Judge Michael Luttig. The talk and the partial transcript is about trump and the events leading up to January 6 starting 2 days before the attempt. As I read through the entire Transcript, […]

I was no general, field grade officer, or even an officer in 1970. Just a three-strip Sergeant in my 3rd year stationed at Lejeune drinking the water and bathing in it. Someone had a brilliant idea we should be trained in riot control since Camp Lejeune was not far from Washington D.C. Some elements out […]

Just finished reading “Black Earth: The Holocaust as history and warning” by Timothy Snyder. It is a detailed account of the Holocaust, as well as an effort to abstract lessons from this history for our time. Like his book “Bloodlands,” Snyder’s “Black Earth” makes for painful reading. As the grandson of a Ukrainian Jew and […]