Our last full day on the ship started early. Very early. Around 4 a.m., both Janel and I woke up when a series of swells and waves covered our window on the fourth floor of the ship. Later, I heard that it did the same for people on the fifth floor. This is a huge ship. That was a huge …
Humankind is sleepwalking toward an apocalypse and until a few years ago, I was one of the zombies. I had been aware of climate change for decades, first learning of it in the late 1980s through the work of NASA climatologist James Hansen. In 2006, I watched with considerable alarm “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary in which Al Gore called global …
Global climate talks among government leaders are underway in Scotland for the next two weeks under the auspices of the UN’s 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26). Here at home, there is a small group of climate scientists whose focus is more domestic. They call themselves Science Moms. They came together to help other “everyday moms” who may not be confident in …
A weird child tells Piers Morgan the darndest things about his just-funny-to-him meeting with Prince Charles: “I think I was yeah, we had a great conversation and it was about you would call it climate change but yeah I think we had a very very good conversation.” — Donald J. Trump We “all” call it climate change, Fonzie. Global warming is …
White nationalists and their ideological cousins on the far alt-right won’t like this. As climate change projections for North Dakota have shown, the state will warm; we’ll have enough moisture. Not so bad, eh? We’ll be an island of relative calm, at least in the early stages of warming, if we don’t immediately act to remove the excess greenhouse gases …
(Satire) “Before the elephant gets in the room, we should make the room elephant-proof.” — Rep. Luke Simons, Bastiat Party (Not Satire) And I think that’s good policy for any room. Who wants an elephant in your room? Have you ever seen the size of those beasts? They’re enormous. And the aroma in close spaces would be unpleasant to the …
Chief Amatoya Kanagaota Moytoy was a powerful 17th century Cherokee leader, born and died in what is now Tennessee. In translation, he was referred to as “emperor.” Moytoy married Quatsy of Tellico, a full-blooded Cherokee of the Holy Clan. She was also referred to as Nancy in other records. It is a common tome of myriad Native nations that the …
Well, at least he didn’t kiss the brutal dictator on the lips and/or grab him by his small organ. That’s something, I suppose. He didn’t sniff Kim’s butt, as far as we know. The action is tough to translate. Instead, our president just slobbered up a storm and beamed radiantly like a teen dork picking up his best girl. This …
The year 2017 was the newsiest year on record according to statistics I just made up. Strike that. These are not alternative facts. This is based on actual gut feelings. And anonymous sources. Seriously, the news lurched from one thing to another so quickly, reporters had to step up their cross-fit routines to keep up, although Rachel Maddow sounded like …
Anyone who believes this country is — and always has been — great had their confidence reinforced by the climate-changing events that have destroyed so many lives and so much property in the past two weeks. It is not the death and destruction that makes us great, of course. It is the way this country responded to provide help and aid wherever …
Stanley rushes into the bar at 1.2 miles per hour and finds Orville nursing a drink. “Orv, I need to borrow $5,000. Do you have that much on you? Fifties, if you got them.” “Gawd. Bartender!” Orv dramatically jabs a bony finger at his glass. “You let the bartender hold your loot, Orv? That seems to grind against your usual …
Americans have lost confidence in just about everything The USA, Americans say, basically sucks right now. The latest Gallup Poll says Americans over the past two years have lost confidence in, well — name it: Congress (8 percent); the presidency (33 percent); Supreme Court (32 percent); big friggin banks (“institutions” that made $4 billion charging customers for money transactions … 28 …