This piece originally appeared on my non-fiction blog, FJY.US . It deals with what is the biggest threat facing America today, and may be the most significant piece I’ve ever written. I am re-posting it here since it goes to the heart of freedom of expression and how it is threatened in unprecedented ways. Democracy dies in darkness. If you care at all about the very survival of American democracy, you should be absolutely terrified of what is happening right…
This piece initially appeared three years ago, on June 21, 2017, the Summer Solstice. Today, June 20, 2020, it is once more the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, and the actual solstice officially occurs at 5:44 p.m. EDT/21:44 UTC this evening. The time and other references and weather comments in the piece are as they were three years ago, when the post first appeared. I’m no longer living on the boat, and there have been other changes. This year…
I’m reminded of the words of Bob Dylan, as much the bard of the Woodstock Generation as anyone, “the times they are a-changin’.“ Or more pointedly, the times, they have a-changed. A lot. As, perhaps, one might expect with the passage of half a century from the original Woodstock festival of August 1969 to now, August 2019. Within minutes of arriving at the Spirit of Woodstock festival, held near Brooksville, Fla., this past weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of…
“Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” – Words on the plaque left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11 There have and will be many words written and numerous commemorations broadcast this week to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first time humans set foot on the moon. For that reason, and others of a more personal nature, this will be an…