Intelligent people can come from anywhere. Stupid ones do come from everywhere. The Democratic ideal has been abdicated in favor of a pluralistic one, a hallmark of twentieth century politics everywhere, certainly; a current politique in favor among a broad spectrum of college educated administrators and fellow paper pushers (paper in the ether?) managing America's … Continue reading Pluralism

Every day is coffee day for me. Just be around when I realize I have forgotten to get coffee the day before. I love my espresso machine. Even though the first espresso machine in the world was in Naples Italy, I do not feel any special affinity for espresso coffee because my father's mother's family … Continue reading National Coffee Day [Flash Fiction]

Some words on news and propaganda or news as propaganda by a man not so unlike any other man, but a man as different from every other man as any man could be, each man unique in the entire history of human being, no one now or who has ever lived or who will ever … Continue reading The Words of an Anonymous Man on the nature of News and Propaganda [Flash Fiction]

  a mask this face I Wear, blue, not sky, but me, grey, November in mood   --jvr

The last of my sake In its cup on the table Shaking as I write.

Some daughters are crazy--they tell their mothers everything. Other daughters are just as crazy--they tell their mothers nothing.

Humans are not so much illogical as they are determined in their actions by an overriding, overarching logic drawn from errors in their premises.

    A robin, three wrens, A few sparrows, all bunched, Pecking the grass.

Do I have to apologize up front to any Arab Muslim or Pakistani person I know who might be offended by what I am going to say? What I am going to say might or might not offend someone who is Arab Muslim or Pakistani, but that cannot be a consideration if what I am … Continue reading Is Littering a Civil Liberty?

A U. Cal Berkley report on air pollution in China states that roughly 17% of China's yearly casualties are directly related to air pollution. 1.6 million people annually die from air pollution. The smog is so bad in Chinese cities that nearly 4000 people a day die because of it.

An expositor writes a piece about facts, figures, numerals and percentages of populations in relation to the numbers bandied about for rhetorical/political effect, and perhaps how they can be used, have been used, what they say or do not say, much the way photographs say what we want them to say by either looking or … Continue reading Glass Houses and the Stones in Hand [Flash Fiction]

    Sun flowers recut In smaller vases--petals Turning at the tips. --jvr

A fragment of a conversation had among friends at the Dock Street Brewery in Philadelphia a couple of decades ago after a day at the Cezanne Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum. The fragment is from one friend who suggested that they go to the Dock Street Brewery to eat and drink.  The unpainted patches in … Continue reading Meta-painting? [Flash Fiction]

  Falling leaf fallen Leaves, late November morning, Sun through the branches --JVR

Facts in themselves are not knowledge; knowledge in itself is not wisdom

What has he said? I could ask. Have I said? Said how difficult it is to say what another is thinking when this other says nothing, remains mute--what do we know about another? Each of us does have to look inside--this state of anotherness makes other like me.  How difficult it is to know what we … Continue reading Another Thinking [Flash Fiction]

To self-publish or not to self-publish, that might be a question for some, but not for many in our overly self-indulgent culture--solipsists, all of us? If I were Scarlett O'Hara, I'd consider this tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, but creeping along in petty paces before I decide to publish one of my many books of … Continue reading To Cover or not to Cover [Flash Fiction]

Who imagines that Apple is a more consumer favorable company than Microsoft? Who believes that Apple is day to Microsoft's night, or even the lesser of two evils? Can we be that naive? Yes, we can. When we had the option of thinner models or upgradable ones, we foolishly chose the former, so now we … Continue reading Apple of Our Eye

Semi-literacy infers semi-illiteracy and it is the latter that is growing, not just in the number of persons who are semi-literate, but in the average degree of semi-illiteracy in the simple separate person; the inability to read having become painstaking in how the average retail manager handles policy in his or customer service. Simple transactions … Continue reading Semi-literate is Semi-illiterate

Obama's argumentative postures aside, no one with any historical acumen can think the Nazis in Germany or the Fascists in Italy or Castro in Cuba got rid of all bureaucrats.  No totalitarian regime or coup d'etat by whatever petty dictator ever got rid of the bureaucrats that were working before the blow to state.  The horror … Continue reading Only the Mountains and Bureaucracy Last Forever

  [A Reissue of an Older Critique of American Government] Bureaucracy is not something apart from bureaucrats; that's a sleight of hand bureaucrats perform more expertly than any dealer in a game of three-card-monty. Any magician would pay to perform with the straight face of your local bureaucrat, or our great and trusted President Obama.  … Continue reading Obama, O! Bankers, Again to their Gain (a reissue)

What we have become is the techo-bureaucratic state; each of us increasingly co-opted in the over-bureaucratization of American life.  This however is done in the name of serving freedom, of being the first in protecting our liberty; this is also present in the rhetoric of President Obama, whereby our great articulate leader shames us into … Continue reading Techno-bureaucrats

I maintain an allegiance to Platonism that no one I know would care to understand let alone endeavor to figure out; and that's as far as believing that ideas are real.  Now the idea that the rights of the individual, as well the metaphysical weight of the individual politically, have been abdicated for a lumpen, … Continue reading Plato, Plato, Come Out of Your Cave

I imagine that the only way for me to conclude for you would be for me to say what I would say as if I were God, seeing, hearing and knowing at once

Politics has a metaphysics; all topics of discussion do.  Metaphysics is not only a discussion of reality, or philosophers spinning their wheels, or an intellectual endeavor equal to hypothesizing how many sprites could fit on the head of a pin, but what is ultimately real.  Metaphysics has veracity beyond the cloudy vision with which most … Continue reading Evidence of things not seen?

Liberty without responsibility is a privilege, not a right. Rights are manifest in liberty and equality. Where privileges reign instead of rights, often made to masquerade as rights, a system of inequality and the lack of liberty exists. Rights flourish with respect where equality is a primary condition of all social relationships. Rights carry responsibilities; … Continue reading Rights, Privileges, Liberty

Is it trite to say that every day is in itself a journey; or, is it just a tautology. A day trip is a day trip, but what were trips to be taken in a day. What do I do in a day--to day or not to day, what is the journey taken? All is … Continue reading Journey, or What Used to be Made in a Day?

The fault of our linguistic limitations lies not in our language but in ourselves.

"Sartre's reversal of what we had called traditional metaphysics does not require us to disband with metaphysical questions. To state propositionally that existence precedes essence is in itself a metaphysical question," he said, a man not so unlike any other man who might say something like what has been said here, as I think I … Continue reading Heaven and Earth [Flash Fiction]

All prefaces to the books I have read have been afterwords, afterwards when I read them, they having been written after the fact of the book. Even an author's introduction I never read before the book. I mean every author's introduction could only have been written after the book was written. You cannot introduce a … Continue reading What I Take to Be Obvious

What you would like to hear and what you should hear, or how you should hear it, have little to do with one another. What I believe and what you believe and what we need to know, need to hear, should examine apart from our belief must be considered if any headway in understanding in … Continue reading Ironies Never Cease [A Short Story]