Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

David Reilly, 28 Feb 1956 – 22 April 2021

Dave Reilly died peacefully in his sleep, of “natural causes,” last Thursday morning. At least, I hope it will still be last Thursday morning by the time I finish this post. Better known in the blogsphere as Lance Mannion, he has been a friend and an inspiration for about fifteen years now. And an intimidation. […]

Eating the Fingers of Fish

“The fish stick is the bane of school children who consider it to be a bland, over cooked, breaded – crusted, cardboard tasting, fish-less effort of lunchrooms and mothers to deceive them into consuming more protein.” In the 1920s, entrepreneur Clarence Birdseye developed a novel freezing technique. Food was placed between metal plates which froze […]

Windsor, VA

Recently, in Windsor, Virginia, United States of America, a local police officer, Police Officer Gutierrez, pulled over Army Second Lieutenant Nazario; ostensibly for the lack of displayed license plate. As it was to turn out, a temporary plate was on display in the vehicle’s rear window. When Lt. Nazario slowly proceeded to a well lighted […]

On Ghost Walls

Raffi Khatchadourian’s Ghost Walls {Surviving the Crackdown in Xinjiang ( As mass detentions and surveillance dominate the lives of China’s Uyghurs and Kazakhs, a woman struggles to free herself.)} is beyond Margaret Atwood dystopian. Ghost Walls gives a victim’s accounting of her own experiencing of China’s reaction to the cultural differences between the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, […]

A Wee Bit of History

Off and on, in 1967, 68, 69 & 70, I worked the San Francisco waterfront as a marine electrician troubleshooter while going to University. Then, there were still the freighters owned by big shipping lines, the cruise lines, and a lot of the old Victory ships coming and going from SF. I worked on all […]

A Curious Form of Sex Addiction

A Curious Form of Sex Addiction, EconoSpeak, Barkley Rosser  The murderer of 8 people recently in the Atlanta area, of whom 6 were Asian American women, mostly (if not completely) Korean American, has claimed that he did not do it out of any anti-Asian prejudice, much less anti-women prejudice, although apparently only one of those […]

51st anniversary of the largest wildcat strike in U.S. labor history

Steve Hutkins: This week marks the 51st anniversary of the largest wildcat strike in U.S. labor history: The Great Postal Strike of 1970 March 18th marks the day fifty-one years ago when postal workers walked off the job in New York City in what soon became the largest wildcat strike in U.S. labor history. Last March […]

Interesting Commentary on a Wednesday

“Letters from an American” Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s column today I find interesting and hopefully AB readers do also. Professor Cox Richardson’s first topic of the day discusses the Justice system and how it is being influenced by political moneyed interests. Her second topic touches on McConnell warning Democrats not to change the filibuster. McConnell’s […]

“How The Humanities Building Went Wrong” Or Does Brutalist Architecture Represent Fascist “Institutionalized Tyranny”?

“How The Humanities Building Went Wrong” Or Does Brutalist Architecture Represent Fascist “Institutionalized Tyranny”?  My freshly arrived Spring 2021 issue of “On Wisconsin,” the alumni magazine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has an article whose title is the first part of the title above in quotation marks.  The later quotation marks phrase appears in the […]