Preserving The American Political Philosophy

I first published this post on my seldom used blog, Sitting On A Log. It was the first blog I ever created. The name represents the activity of sitting on a log in the woods, or a field, or a mountain top- somewhere in the natural world remote from the cultural world, where one's mind can wander wherever it wants to  go. Since it is my birthday, I decided to publish it here as well: I just added one phrase to this post which isn't in the other- I'll let you guess which one that is . Today, January 27 is my seventieth birthday. I am giving myself the gift of allowance to tell my story my own way. Throughout my life, whenever submitting biographies, resumes and so forth, I have thought what if I were to tell the real story about what has formed who I am instead of just the things that conventional accounts are made of ? My story begins with my first memory after finding myself in the material world. I was lying in a crib. Off in the distance there was a light shi...

As our national drama unfolds as a tale of alleged money laundering clogging the arteries of presidential politics, a uniquely positioned character emerges in Steve Bannon. Once rumored to be the power behind the throne, Bannon is now banished from the regime, fired from his job, and cut off from his financial supply chain. Steve Bannon has nothing left to lose. In ostracizing Bannon, Bannon came to be empowered with an unpredictable artillery of a loose cannon, a circumstance which the prevailing power contingency failed to foresee. Bannon is as derisive of Congress as he is ostracized by the Trump Republicans. Bannon was called back to center stage by the equally independent Mueller, reported to be straighter than an arrow and poised to penetrate the long-whispered rumors of an underworld wasp's nest crowning the glorious tower of Trump Global Enterprises. How delicious! But sorry to disappoint my dear reader, this blog post is not about Trump or Bannon and the whole shebang, H...

I am loving our new location. It feels like living in the Mists of Avalon, which is a book that was very popular some decades ago. It is the only book I ever read that has an indescribable but very pronounced internal effect on beingness. We moved from a view of the mill pond to a view of the rolling hills and forests, one would think. But as the sun breaks through the clouds as it rises over the  tree tops in the morning, a landscape of shining seas surrounding a structure on a mountain top forms as an interaction between clouds and sun. This is a calling to do Chi Gong and other exercises. I am listening to John Meyers album, Contimuum as I do so. Its a challenge not to dance to this enchanting album while doing Chi Gong, which are stillness exercises. I am now a John Meyer fan. He has a voice so free of tension that his humanity shines through. Related Content: Russian Artists, Eugenia Dudnikova, uses trees as a rural version of street art

The dispute between Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens INC  and the Town of Boothbay entered a new chapter as 2017 came to an end. Lawyers for CMBG filed a lawsuit on Dec. 20 in U.S. District Court in Portland, claiming the Town of Boothbay denied CMBG its constitutional right to due process. The Coastal Gardens Inc thereby places the dispute in a constitutional context, which is where it needs to be, but for other reasons than those for which the Garden's lawyers have filed suit.  I submit, as a citizen of Maine, that if the Maine Constitution is honored, the town ordinances cannot give special treatment to one type of organization over another, based on whether the developer is codified as an educational facility, a museum, a big box store, or whatever. The premise of my argument is found in the preamble of the Maine Constitutions which articulates the objects of government, one of which is to "promote our common welfare". The adjective "common", as us...