My Morals Are Stronger Than Your Morals
The difference between conservatives and progressives or liberal and their electoral success or not is complicated. Lakoff attributes this to messaging and Haidt to moral differences.
Tangled Trees, Tangled Truths
Thinking about how our divided politics, which is so mixed up and tangled, that it looks similar to the kind of tangling that physicists and biologists deal with.
Loss and Disappointment
When is the right time to tell someone you're gay? Two instances of when it was too late.
Conservatives Tell Us How to Behave
How do conservatives look at the concerns of progressive people? From the book The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray, like a bunch of complainers who don't know how good they have it.
Becoming Different: Opening the Door to Gay Society
The stereotype of the gay man fated to be lonely and alone has with the gay rights movement gotten less true. There's still a gay life after 40 or at least there can be.
Believe Me, I’m Telling You the Truth!
Some thoughts on truth and believability, which are not the same thing. Truth can be slippery and discerning it can take some effort on the reader's or listener's part. It's as easy to be deceived as to be enlightened.
Is the Majority Always Wrong?
Mark Twain had no trust or love for majority rule, but since our country is supposedly democratic, how does that mistrust of majority rule align with what kind of country the US wants to be? There's a lot of anti-democratic feelings boiling up in the country now.
The Buzz About Bees in Jefferson County
Beekeeping is an important, though small activity in Jefferson County. The people who do raise bees and harvest honey are closely attuned to their environment.
Talking With Strangers
Making friends from strangers has never been easy. The reasons I've analyzed in my own case are tied to who I am as a personality, but also who I chose to be.
What to Make of John McWhorter
John McWhorter is a Black man who rejects the idea that Black people have any right to criticize their present station in life. He argues that staying woke in the face of racism and the attention given by white people to anti-racism is demeaning of Black people. This in spite of the fact that the term woke and the reality of racism reflects the experience and testimony of Black people themselves.
Think You’re Too Old to Start a New Language?
Learning continuously is important in aging well. Learning a language is shown to be especially beneficial.
This Is Who I Am: Why I Tell People I’m Gay Even If They Know
A personal account of how and why I became comfortable with telling others, including strangers, that I'm gay.
Places To Go and Places To Be
I love where I live and this is the story of how that came to be. The story is also an appreciation of one of Barry Lopez's essays about connection to place.
The Proverbial Fat Lady Is Still in Good Voice
Going from one later decade of life into another. Looking back, looking forward.
The Quiet Methods of Abortion Clinic Escorts
Countering anti-abortion protests with a helping hand Published in Ellemeno, Oct. 14, 2023 (https://medium.com/ellemeno/the-quiet-methods-of-abortion-clinic-escorts-1a6a1cf4a668) The political signs for next year’s presidential and congressional elections point to abortion being a trigger issue for voters — again. Both anti-abortion and pro-choice people will be campaigning heatedly. Both…
Cap and Gown and Town
Shepherd University in West Virginia is a designated age-friendly university, meaning it is sensitive and responsive not just to its students, but to the wider community.
Charity — The Worlds Solution to Wealth Inequality
Does the institution of charity and the practice of charitable giving come from our human nature or is it actively promoted by businesses and governments who are trying to deflect their responsibility to prevent the need for charity.
I Playacted at Being Straight. Here’s Why I Stopped.
Coming out as a gay male in the 1060's was a lonely process. This is a story about how I arrived at the decision to come out and why it was necessary.
What is it like to be an LGBTQ teenager?
Some thoughts about what it's like to be queer and young and have to contend with the false expectations the dominant society has about you.
Organizations serving LGBTQ youth in the Panhandle
Queer youth can have a rough time bucking the forces that don't like them the way they are and will often punish them for being who they are This article discusses three local organizations that advocate and provide services for these kids.
Downsizing and Packing Up
What's the plan to reduce your glut of stuff after you lose your partner. Are you giving up just stuff or memories too?
Better Call Saul for LGBTQIA+ Rights
Saul Alinsky wrote the book on how to get what you need from your society when the powers that be don't want you to have them. He laid the groundwork for the methods that the ACT UP movement used to poke the government to respond to the AIDS epidemic in the 80's and 90's.
The library: Not about keeping quiet anymore
Book banning may be coming to a library close to home. How does banning a book work and what's library policy in regard to challenging a book?
The Writing Life Late in Life
The story of how I came to call myself a writer and what it does for me.
The Appeal and Power of Music
Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church each year sponsors a PeaceFest with local musicians playing pieces to align with a theme. This year's theme was Guns to Gardens an initiative to retire unneeded guns from the community.
Celebrating LGBTQ Resiliency in Appalachia
West Virginia has historically been accepting of LGBTQ people. This article talks about an event I participated in to showcase the stories of a collection of queer individuals across the state.
LGBTQ Safe Spaces in the City and in the Country
A personal recollection of gay bars and a reflection on why there aren't as many of them today as there were.
Is Hoping Worth the Effort?
Hope is a word we typically utter with the expectation of some outcome, usually a positive outcome, but not necessarily. It’s typically triggered by some actual or imagined threat. The hope is made with the prospect of reducing that threat.
How Do You Feel About Your AI?
The question is how much humanness there is in artificial intelligence. Enough for us to trust it or not?
Got a Problem? Ask Your AI Bot
Can AI bots do a better job than we humans have done in working through solutions to our social problems?
Go North Old Man
The story of how I came to be for a while, maybe not long enough, in Newfoundland.
Who Am I to You?
There is a pervasive tendency to label people we don’t like for some reason that offends us. Many labels are pejorative, meant not just to describe, but to tar.
Straight Father and Gay Son
Fathers raise their sons with their own idea of how they will turn out. Straight fathers often don't realize their sons may be gay. This can put a strain on what it means to love and be loved.
Thwarted Ambition
The briefest history of me voluntarily or being forced to change career directions.
Gay and Out In Very Red West Virginia
A positive piece about how West Virginia is not as hateful to LGBTQ people as states farther to the south.
Poet Friends
The story of me and Lynn Kernan. One a would be poet, the other an actual poet.
Book Banning Counter Attack
Books are being banned as a radical right conservative battle with rights progressives have won over the years. This article offers some thoughts about who is going to win and what progressives can do to counter attack the book burners.
Rooting for Ranson against the pressures of gentrification
This article focuses on the planning for Ranson growth and development as seen from the perspective and goals of Andy Colandrea, a city councilperson.
The Road Taken: Figuring out when, where, and why to turn
Decision points in life can come at you unexpectedly or you can plan for them. This piece relates some decisions of both kinds I made in my life.
That Awkward Feeling
Political polarization weighs heavily on people who don't feel comfortable at either pole. How do you find a comfortable position on the spectrum?
The struggle to make AI seem human
There are two opposing viewpoints about AI. One believes that the potential for AI is almost limitless and that it will ultimately reach human levels. The other, supported by linguistics says that's not likely.
Guns on Campus
A report of the passage of the the Campus Carry law allowing guns to be carried on college campuses, against the appeals not to do so from college presidents
Ambition
Why does a person at 78 decide to take on what is essentially a new job that they have no formal preparation for? There's got to be a reason, yes?
Woke, Wokeness, Wokeism
This article focuses on the fortunes of the word "woke" and the change from its original meaning in the phrase "Stay woke" as a warning to an indictment of progressive politics.
Woke: the Concept and the Word
There's a battle being waged over the meaning and significance of the word "woke," a term that has it's origins in the Black community as part of the language for how to deal with racial prejudice.
Systemic Racism Has Got to Go
There's a debate in the U.S. as to whether systemic racism exists in the country. Some red states want to legislate the term away, to deny its existence. But is that going to be possible or even desirable?
Restoring and Recreating the Past
Historic homes and buildings in Jefferson County are an important feature of the county's identify. The preservation of these buildings is a hands-on concern for many residents.
School Testing: A Complicated Topic
High school teachers and the school board in Jefferson County got into a disagreement on when and how to administer end-of-semester exams and how much to weight them. The teachers issued a vote of no confidence in the board. Here's the details with some discussion of the purpose of testing kids as much as schools do.
Historians of Jefferson County
History is an important professional and amateur vocation for many people in Jefferson County given our long and rich history. This article focuses on one aspect of that history the cemeteries of Black residents, and one in particular, the Duffields Colored Cemetery.
Keeping Downtown Shepherdstown Businesses Vital
The town council of Shepherdstown convened a town hall to consider community input into how to grow and sustain the successful business life of the town. This article is a report of the questions and discussion.