A good friend, a poet, recently sent me this poem from a fellow poet, thinking it might be appropriate for the Potlatch Tertulia. Though the poem is ten years old, I think it speaks to us now and helps us understand what we might do during this time of national angst. Doing Nothing by Dan…

Everything I’m about to say, you’ve probably heard before ad nauseam. So why am I saying it? Because I have to talk to someone; the pain and shame of watching our government self-destruct and become something that defies description has become intolerable, like a migraine headache, a terminal illness, a bankruptcy, a feeling of homelessness…

As the Minneapolitans struggle The debacle continues As the heinous deaths recede from view The message is clear The Federales are after our jugular For the sake of power If the crisis in Minneapolis stood alone It would be bad enough But it’s merely a footnote In its hideous violence And unfathomable contempt If Minneapolis…

Today is not like yesterday or the days before. As Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, said at Davos, there has been a rupture, only this time it is with us, average Americans who have come face-to-face with the authoritarian government we never thought would come. The killing of Alex Pretti yesterday in Minneapolis by…

We’ve all seen what’s going on in Minneapolis, like the January 6th attack on the Capital we witnessed it on television. And as Groucho Marx said, “Who you gonna believe, me, or your own eyes?” The “me,” being the likes of vice president J. D. Vance, who quickly, without evidence, blamed Renee Good and the…

When I first saw this phrase in the news I couldn’t help but use it as a title for comments about the role of churches in the present crisis where the federal government is engaging in wholesale abuse of its citizens. “Dios Habla Hoy,” God Speaks Today, should be on the lips and minds of…

If you have read Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, 1776) or even Ann Rand (Atlas Shrugged, 1957), you have a rationale for saving yourselves. And if you haven’t, their point is that self-interest drives much of what we do or believe. It is in our best interest to look out for ourselves. Knowing this, the…

You have to wonder what is going on with the United States. I know that Europeans and friends in the Americas do, if the few I correspond with are any indication. They think Trump is nuts. I keep wondering, too, what my Trump friends are thinking; I shudder to think that they might still support…

Without the several videos of the recent killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis her murder would have been quickly denied and covered up. And if you don’t believe this, look back on the tragic unprovoked murder of the young black man, Ahmaud Arbery, in Georgia February 2021. The case made the national news, and I…

This morning’s editorial entitled “The ICE Shooting in Minneapolis”* in The Wall Street Journal is the usual disingenuous attempt by Republican apologists to assuage Republican guilt. Time and time again after terrible tragedies they trot out their sanctimonious laments about “both sides being wrong.” The biggest fool among us knows that sending armed paramilitaries into…