Everyone is born somewhere. Well, today at least; that might change if we ever become a spacefaring species. But for the moment, each of us has a birthplace in some Earthly land. The majority of us live our whole lives in that land, vacations and business trips notwithstanding. Some striking fiction has been …
Category: safety and security
Oct 07 2022
TEOTWAWKI Stuff
I don’t write a great deal on this subject, but lately I’ve been getting the sense that the time has come to confront some harsh realities and some ugly possibilities. If you’re not in the mood for the subject this fine Friday morning, I promise that I’ll understand…but I am. *** The following …
Oct 29 2021
Preparations
[Rather than strain a tired brain beyond its current capacity, I’ve decided to recycle a piece from 2017, when the urban rioting we’ve “enjoyed” since then was just coming over the horizon. – FWP] *** A great deal of one’s ability to feel secure – i.e., prepared for likely developments rather than threatened …
May 08 2021
Death Of A Nation
In 1915, a man named D. W. Griffith made a movie that – as we like to say these days – excited some controversy. It was titled Birth of a Nation. It was a Civil-War movie – that’s the War Between The States for any Copperheads in the audience – that was mostly about …
Apr 14 2021
A New Kind Of “Mistake”
I think we’ll be seeing this more often: Sunday’s fatal shooting in a Minneapolis suburb was the 18th time in the past 20 years that police officers used a gun when they said they intended to use a Taser, according to a use-of-force researcher. By comparison, police kill about 1,000 people each …
Feb 15 2021
The Fearful And What They Fear
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity They seem more afraid of life than death. – James F. Byrnes There was no security in this world and only damn fools and mice thought there could be. – Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road These past two days, I’ve encountered several …