skipper

  • Below mariner has composed fiscal details from several sources. Inflation is like riding a roller coaster where a person is rolling uphill if they are lucky and at the same time rolling downhill if a person is not […]

  • Memory is a strange phenomenon. The subconscious wreaks havoc with our memories if only to justify our idiosyncrasies. We can remember a brief instant deep in our past for no reason except that, for some reason, […]

    • The men who trained me listened to WITH-AM, the “Music of your Life”. I can identify Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and Harry James. They were their GOAT when they were fighting in WW2.
      I still listen to Little Feat, Johnny Winter, Robert Palmer and Steely Dan. It’s all relative bro, it’s all relative. They were the Greatest of All Time.

  • The politicians and medical experts talk of ‘lockdown’ and ‘job disruption’ and ‘inflation/recession’ (depending on who is talking).  As a participant in these odd times, mariner feels more like a shut-in. Per […]

  • It is interesting that no one in the organized world knew there was a North and South America. Then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, both were discovered by a western world of Christian white people. Their new […]

    • That would require white folks to recognize people who look different from them as equals – something that won’t happen in our lifetimes. On the plus side, as more and more immigrants come to our country and as the white folks as a percentage of the population dwindles, perhaps our society can embrace the idea that we are all in this together.

  • Vaguely, mariner remembers a children’s story about an ogre that was so big no matter what he did, it caused a disaster. A sneeze would wipe out several homes; a snore would have the effect of an earthquake, e […]

    • There is no elasticity in authoritarian nations. That’s why those of us who bend and sway were concerned about the last administration here in the US.

  • Mariner has nagged about the decline of government, economics and society for 23 straight months, not counting other ideological issues and the always inadequate electorate. But in the last six months, setting […]

  • All around the nation educationists are increasingly concerned about the vulnerability of children and teenagers to illicit information and conspiracy theories, especially on the internet and social media. Already […]

  • As the gap between the well-to-do and the lower income groups widens ever more rapidly, a citizen might wonder why legislators aren’t aware of the strain the gap causes. One could look at the effect Putin and h […]

  • One of the many, many disruptions in today’s society is the new phenomenon of ‘work from home’. The traditional model leveraged the natural human behavior to associate in cliques, extended families and tribe […]

  • skipper wrote a new post, Sea Change 3 years ago

    Axios reported on some surveys of Generation Z, the young generation aged 18 – 29. The charts speak for themselves, showing a significant shift toward the Democratic Party:

    Mariner often touts the t […]

    • Marty replied 3 years ago

      Thank you! All good news appreciated!

    • I hope these survey results are correct. The young people (18-29) I deal with in my classes are either apathetic or easily led by misinformation on social media. I fear for our Republic. Every now and then I find one who thinks independently and can see more of the whole picture through their own diligence at finding the truth.

  • Sorry to invoke your ire, Fred. Mariner gets his news from more than a dozen proven to be reliable news sites on the Internet and deliberately doesn’t watch broadcast news from Fox to Msnbc and everything in between.
    The difficulty here is that one must take into account several perspectives at once. For example, Russia’s economy is about the…[Read more]

  • The red line on the map of Eastern Europe below shows the peak of USSR dominance in 1950. For decades the West has known that Vladimir Putin’s dream is to restore Russia to its largest expansion that was created b […]

    • Sorry to invoke your ire, Fred. Mariner gets his news from more than a dozen proven to be reliable news sites on the Internet and deliberately doesn’t watch broadcast news from Fox to Msnbc and everything in between.
      The difficulty here is that one must take into account several perspectives at once. For example, Russia’s economy is about the same size as Italy’s. Putin is loosing favor with Russian citizens. Russia has a lot of land that is useless so agriculture isn’t a strength. Putin needs the agricultural base that Eastern Europe provides. He is a dictator so he can prioritize national strategies as he wants. He may well invade Ukraine but the West cannot afford to put a global, internet-driven economy on the line for Ukraine.
      What the West can do is shut down Russia’s small and weak economy. As mentioned on the blog, this is difficult for the EU because of fuel dependency.
      Putin is an unsophisticated bully. In the long run, this confrontation will only hurt Russia, war or sanctions.
      Another perspective makes Putin a mere nuisance because he distracts the US from another nation whose economy is larger than Italy’s: China. The US and China are fighting a war that Putin can’t afford; Who will be this century’s leading economy? Who will control global communication? Who will create the dominant world-wide supply chain?
      In short, the US can’t afford to play Putin’s game. It is easier and cheaper to shut Putin down with sanctions so the US can focus on China and the Pacific.

  • Around the entire planet, presidents, prime ministers, dictators and monarchs struggle to maintain a positive image to their subjects while fighting nature’s infectious army. Science struggles to keep up with n […]

  • Since early last December online news services have begun reporting on the immoral circumstance and the economic impact of a rapidly self-enriching oligarchy, i.e., the super billionaire citizens and large, […]

  • skipper wrote a new post, Language 3 years ago

    Jever (Did you ever) hear someone use a many syllabled word for a one-syllable meaning? Mariner uses too many syllables sometimes but he means really big words like slubberdegullion, which means ‘unhappy p […]

  • Jesus continues by addressing the Greatest Commandments and demonstrating how to invoke the Holy Spirit with the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

    IIIb  THE GREATEST COMMANDMENTS

    Mark 12:28-31

    36 […]

  • Now that mariner has adopted the New Age, he has some ideas.

    Today there are game programs so realistic that the player actually controls the hero. It shouldn’t be too difficult to develop regular movies like c […]

  • He understands that within a decade or two a new age will have emerged. The Age of Humanism will be left to history, replaced by a more computer-managed reality. Mariner has made himself eager to participate in […]

  • skipper wrote a new post, Reality 3 years ago

    {The Atlantic} The moment that broke Cassie Alexander came nine months into the pandemic. As an intensive-care-unit nurse of 14 years, Alexander had seen plenty of “Hellraiser stuff,” she told me. But when COV […]

  • Load More