Mariner mentioned in an earlier post that he had entered a ‘homesteader’ phase. What that means is that he is interested in self-sufficiency, simplicity and a liaison with the biosphere. While his muscles ache a b […]

As regular readers know mariner is home alone for a couple of weeks. As a result of cooking only for one, he dug out his old hibachi to grill food instead of using the regular gas grill. His experience was […]

֎ If the reader has ever vacationed on South Padre Island and visited the town of Brownsville, Texas they know the laid back, mostly Mexican culture and the abundance of retired old people. It’s just a single pu […]

Science Magazine – The scenes were apocalyptic. On 20 July, a flash flood in Zhengzhou, a city of 10 million on the Yellow River in China, caused a low-lying, kilometer-long section of the city’s Metro Line 5 tun […]

Here’s a note from Protocol, a tech newsletter:

“Three hundred and thirty-one billion dollars. That’s how much revenue the five biggest companies in tech — Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebo […]

As some readers may know, mariner is playing bachelor for a couple of weeks. The sudden absence of a life partner is surprisingly distracting for a few days. It took three days for mariner to set up routines, […]

AXIOS published an article this morning that talked about the fact that each of us has fewer friends today than we had in 1990. If one is a baby boomer it would seem so as friends and relatives slowly pass away; […]

If the reader is thirsting for pure 100 percent intellectualism, read Harper’s Magazine. The journal always has looked to the abstract reasoning behind society, writing about the contribution of those who a […]

Here’s an interesting side note: Bill Gates is the largest farm owner in the United States. Ol’ farmer Bill.

Gates and his wife have acquired more than 269,000 acres of farm in the United States in the past 10 […]

֎ AXIOS distributed a concise and clear statement about why world population rates are dropping. It is a quality statement about a topic that doesn’t get much news coverage but can be a significant in […]

The authoritarian revolt of the belligerent right still deserves our attention and requires some serious effort to contain the movement. Whether the electorate understands that movement’s threat to the c […]

Does the reader remember the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? Twelve nations, primarily along the Pacific Ocean, negotiated a trade agreement. The nations were:

United States • Singapore • Brunei • New Zeala […]

Mariner has mentioned a time or two that, as we all are well aware, these are changing times, perhaps greater than any war that bookends changes in power or any historical unrest that transforms a social age, […]

Mariner has a large window in his living room. It displays the street in front and a few houses across the street. Mariner has dubbed it his personal screensaver. It acts exactly like the ones on cable TV; most of […]

Folks tend to look for clues about climate change in weather patterns. It is true that climates are shifting but on a seasonal basis it is hard to measure how much is change and how much is typical variability. […]

Is Purgatory required by God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church or the medical profession? Mariner is of an age where he no longer is a mainstay of society, economics or politics. Like millions of other citizens, he […]

There are two very prominent moments when how students were taught changed dramatically. Today, a third seems to be emerging.

֎ The first moment was when the ‘University’ of Bologna was created in 1088. It was […]

Last Friday on an early, Way To Early, news show there was a piece about how manufacturers were resizing products to compensate for rising production costs rather than raising prices and lose customers. It has a […]

During the pandemic citizens became accustomed to ‘free shipping’ from online and storefront retailers. Amazon, for example, touted free shipping in two days. Behind the scenes, however, Amazon had forced sell […]