First Thoughts

… HCR meeter neutral today… about the census and the political machinations that will be attendant with redistricting… major point is that urban populations are underrepresented and rural populations are overrepresented… that rural, white minority populations will continue to press this advantage and urban majorities will increasingly not tolerate it… it sounds as thought there need to be changes in the way representation is calculated, on a per multiple thousands basis… it doesn’t sound like this requires a constitutional amendment from my read of this AM’s post… i just re-read, and yes indeed, Congress set the cap on number of representatives… the constitution is mute on the point… one wonders why there isn’t talk of changing the cap as an effective antidote to voter suppression etc…

… a less fraught day yesterday… i spoke with Mom, things seemed a little less dire when i talked with her about Dad’s condition though i learned that she has one way of thinking about my Dad sleeping in a chair, and my sister another… the former tries to get him not to do it and is frustrated at not being able to, the later believes he does it because it is more comfortable, which tracks with his condition… i think mom is in a little bit of denial… not that she doesn’t know where this is heading, but she would like it to slow down… Rick arrived last night… there have been no reports from him yet…

… the heat broke a little, but not completely… going to continue to be hot, though not as hot…

First Thoughts

… the HCR meeter points downward today… she talks about the fascist tendencies that are being expressed across the country, especially, at present, around local officials’ attempts to meet the COVID resurgence with mask and vaccine mandates… she points out that something similar happened in the 1930’s during FDR’s time in office with an actual coup attempt in 1934 (which was strangely absent from the history i learned)… whether we head in that direction seems hinged on what Democrats in congress do about voting rights… many would argue that the need is urgent, and yet, there are Senators unwilling to part with the Filibuster rule…

… news also, in the form of a text exchange between my brother and sister, that Dad gets worse… i feel a tinge of sadness about it, even if i am estranged from him… even though i long ago gave up any expectations that we might one day come to an understanding… i don’t know if this tinge of sadness is about loosing a father or about the sadness anyone might feel on hearing of the descent towards death of another human being… And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.¹

… a comment on one of my posts!, they do get read after all…

… i have been watching the films of Kelly Reichardt… while H is on Block Island tending to her mother… i am watching art house films she may or may not have been in to… the Reichardt films are what i like to call slice of life films… that is, films which pick up in the lives of rather ordinary characters, observe them for a while, then set them down without full resolution of their present situation…

… last night i watched River of Grass and Meeks Cutoff… the first set in contemporary times, the second set in the 1800’s… Meeks Cutoff was the more enigmatic and thought provoking… basically, a group of religious pioneers making their way across desert landscapes, short on water, not really knowing where they are going or when they will find water… they have a guide, Meeks, who they wonder about the intentions and capabilities of, consider whether to hang him, but don’t (it is a religious group)… along the way, they capture a Native American whom they can’t communicate with but whom they decide to have faith in to lead them to water… it’s questionable whether he understands that is what they want or even if he does, will lead them into the hands of hostile Native Americans… at one point Meeks decides to kill the NA (which he had recommended from the beginning) but one of the pioneers, a woman played by Michelle Williams (one of my favorite actresses), steps in to stop him… shortly thereafter we leave the intrepid band of settlers following the NA into the distance… not very much happens during the film in action terms… it’s almost laughable that it got a 16 or older rating for violence, of which there is practically none…

… i had already seen one of Reichardt’s films, Wendy and Lucy, featuring Michelle Williams as Wendy and her dog Lucy, making their way across country on a tight budget, when Wendy gets arrested for shoplifting, she is separated from Lucy whom she spends the rest of the film trying to find and reunite with…

… there are three more to watch, Old Joy, which appears to be unavailable on any streaming service, Night Moves and Certain Women… i will try to watch the last two tonight and tomorrow night…

First Thoughts

… the HCR meter is encouraging this morning, day off to a good start even if an extra early start… the jobs report was stellar… the Dems are making their counter argument on the economy and it is a successful and popular argument, which is important, one of the things that can stave off a return of 45 or someone like him… now, some form of voting rights legislation needs to be accomplished… if it is, we’ll have our best possibility of staving off authoritarianism…

… presented my wires, mannequins, greek myth, techne image set last night, the salon was underwhelmed, thought the connection was what?, forced i guess… i have made up my mind to keep pursuing for a while anyway… it feels right…

… some good interactions on micro.blog yesterday…

… some progress on the dining room trim yesterday… the usual two steps forward, one back, but that will change as i remember the process…

… dogs sleeping in the studio, they have the good sense to go back to bed, me, it’s hours to make good use of… i have always been a morning person… if i become much more of a morning person, i will be a night person!… interestingly, alcohol is not to blame… i slept the night through… about 5 1/2 hours…

… i am thinking i will take the Nikon with me on the morning walk…

… the weather has been humid and hot, dog days for sure… it’s also been cloudy and a bit dismal… it will be on the far side of 95 degrees F for the next several days… hunker down, hunker down…

First Thoughts

… a friend once said that his day got off to a good or bad start depending on what Heather Cox Richardson had to say… it is similar for me, and today it’s a bad start… she calls a spade a spade… radical conservatives are working hard to move the country in an Authoritarian direction, praising Victor Orban, president of Hungary, whipping up anti-immigrant frenzy, telling their constituents that immigrants are to blame for the current Delta variant crises and blaming it on lax immigration policies of the Biden/Harris administration… it isn’t true… all to preserve the white male patriarchy hold on power… i saw this coming years ago… it is reaching the decisive point… the next three and a third years will be the pivot point or not…

… critical to stopping the authoritarian move is to enact federal voting rights legislation of some kind…

… i am feeling anxious about the coming day… anxious that there are too many things i should do and not enough time to do them… i will have to triage…

… K comes to weed the garden today… it will be a novel concept to have a well weeded garden…

… J and i talked a bit after the family call yesterday… we agreed that with current trends, we don’t expect J to last beyond October… my mood about that is somber… we are going where we are going… the goal is to get there with as little suffering as possible… certainly for J, but also for all of us around J… of course, accepting the inevitability of J’s death is accepting the inevitability of our own deaths… this makes it hard to face…

… time to be a bit more optimistic about the day!… i will get what needs to be done, done…

First Thoughts

… Heather Cox Richardson made a post today… she usually takes Saturday night off… however, Rod Rosen testimony has begun… there has been news reporting that 45 directly pressured the Justice Department to overturn the election… it was barely resisted… but, it was resisted and now it will be testified about… will be interesting to hear what the reporting is in the coming weeks… is the noose tightening around 45?… will there be justice served?… or will our system allow him the weasel away?… HCR is hopeful… stay tuned…

… E and B had a movie night last night… wasn’t totally in the mood, but went anyway… it was fun… it was outdoors… most surprising was that i wasn’t bitten by mosquitoes… fans seemed to do the trick of keeping them away…

… had to change track on construction projects… did some research on PT lumber and the consensus seems to be that it is good to let the lumber do some drying before installing it… so i set it up with air circulation and we will wait and see… in the meantime, i plan to move on to the dining room trim… i have some boards and should be able to get it started…

… i am glad to have no commitments today, other than family zoom…

… i purchased a subscription to SetApp… i think it will be less expensive in the long run, once i switch Ulysses over to being managed through it… i also really like the NotePlan app for tracking what you plan to do, what you do… there is an Instagram uploader that may be moderately helpful in posting my images…

… yesterday i didn’t turn the TV on at all… if i had been home last night, i would have watched a movies, but that is my plan, little TV for the time that H is on BI…

… also, i continue to spend very little time on FB or Instagram… not missing it that much… feeling more at peace… it helps to not engage in the desire disappointment cycle of being liked or not…

First Thoughts

… a text from J, during the night, they spoke to C who says J is slowing down considerably, not able to make and eat breakfast… they say they are glad that R and i will visit soon…

… exploring SetApp… i try to take a look at one new app a day, i have found two that seem worth my while, NotePlan in particular seems to be the task and planning app i’ve been waiting for all my life… combining note taking, task setting and calendar all together… it, combined with Ulysses should be enough to justify its cost… if i find one or two more that are useful, icing on the cake…

… today i take H over to M and R’s house, from there, they will spring M from rehab and take them back to Block Island… H will stay with M on the island for as long as it takes to be sure they are able to function, with or without help… or the end of the month, when they will have to be back to care for the dogs while i drive to Florida and back…

… Heather Cox Richardson’s post was about how the conservative stance on COVID19 (reinforcing vaccine disinformation, banning mask wearing and downplaying the virus altogether) is boomeranging on them as the Delta variant burns through the unvaccinated who are overwhelmingly the ones catching it, being hospitalized with it and dying from it… with any luck, conservative disenchantment with their leaders and happiness with the economic help the Biden/Harris administration has organized will lead to control of House and Senate remaining in the hands of Democrats… it would likely mean the end of the threat to democracy for the time being…

First Thoughts

… Heather Cox Richardson is about Tucker Carlson, Hungary, Victor Orban, Christian authoritarianism, and how the United States is being pushed in the same direction… it saddens me that at present it is hard to perceive that this push will not succeed… i have no desire to live under Christian authoritarianism, or any other kind of authoritarianism… Democrats have been unwilling to do what is needed to reverse course… or at least a handful of Democrats…

… i once told someone that i have no interest in power, at least the kind of power that is power over… i loath people who have power and use it to shape the world to their personal vision of how things should be… i loath minorities that try to do the same… one size fits all is rarely a good solution… one size does not fit all… multicultural adjustability fits all…

… i started looking into Non-Fungible Token art yesterday… i find myself getting excited about making art in a way i haven’t been for a while… there is a way of making and distributing things i have been making but didn’t know what to do with… the flattened cans project, the video stills project… there are also the image poems, a short sequence of images played in video fashion… it seems to be opening up possibilities for exhibiting and selling… it seems to offer a chance to bypass the gate keepers… of course, there is no reason there will be any more interest in my work than there is now, just because the venue for sharing changes… there are issues with NFTs, especially environmental ones… they require a great deal of computing resources as individual object certificates (and the objects?) get distributed across many servers around the world… the redundancy is what protects the system from fraud…

First Thoughts

… i rescued a centipede from the kitchen sink this morning… i rescued one yesterday too… i wonder if it is the same one?… stainless steel kitchen sinks make good centipede traps…

… i also did not drink alcohol last night… two nights running… kitchen all cleaned up when i came down… coffee ready to go, my body happier… mind, take note…

… Heather Cox Richardson is a mixed bag this morning… she talks about the extremism of the Republican Party, about its continued enthrallment with 45, about voter suppression… but also how there appear to be fishers… apparently 45 backed a candidate in a recent election in Texas and lost… the justice department has declined to defend a member of congress from a lawsuit by Eric Swalwell nor will it assert an executive privilege defense for any member of congress against congressional subpoenas… they will have to spend their own money on defense which may help speed up the January 6th inquiry… unless, of course, private donors step in…

… i have stopped watching much news… even Nicole Wallace, one of my favorites… i don’t think the daily news adds much to my understanding of what is going on and it does much to disturb my peace of mind… H has been kindly keeping the volume down most of the time…

… H will be heading out to Block Island with her mother at the end of next week… it is unclear how long she will be there… hoping it is long enough that i can get a couple of house projects done…

First Thougths

… a good day yesterday…

… some research and thinking about web presence, nothing conclusive… assemblage of some ideas… the main decision being whether to have a news letter only, or a second blog site where more carefully composed writing happens…

… a good walk, photographs made and edited, there were some good ones…

… a nice dinner

• mothership tomato salad
  • we will be making this salad numerous times in the coming weeks as the summer tomatoes are ripe in our garden and at the farmer’s market
• lacinato kale and ricotta salata salad
  • this is a longtime favorite that features raw kale
• pan fried crispy skin salmon
  • first time i have ever managed to crisp the skin and have it not stick to the cast iron skillet…
    • salmon in the pan before heating up
    • lots of canola oil
    • medium heat
    • finish in oven under the broiler…

… it was a perfect summer dinner that met my dietary goals, low animal fat, low carb…

… the news from Heather Cox Richardson is of the more distressing kind this morning… 45 is consolidating power, continuing to divide the nation, trying to undermine the bi-partisan infrastructure bill… HCR wrote:

One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop. And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it.

… 45 needs to be god… he won’t stop trying to be god until someone draws that line and there are consequences for stepping over it… this is what bothers me so much… the inability of our governing system to hold him accountable… we have completely failed on that score and with every passing day that we continue our failure, the closer we come to a dictatorship… this is what keeps me awake at night…

01 First Thoughts:

… feeling so much better this morning… no sleep interruption from the dogs, little alcohol last night…

… Heather Cox Richardson mentioned Tucker Carlson… the hairs stand up on the back of my neck… a despicable person… i keep thinking there has to be a way to regulate misinformation, that if we don’t find a way, we are doomed…

… i am increasingly thinking i will remove myself from the services of the big tech companies, google, twitter, Facebook, instagram, etc… yesterday i created a ProtonMail account… i will withdraw from conducting personal business on gmail…

… a micro.blog member posted a quote by Carl Sagan, written in 1996, that is so prescient…

_ “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…_

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”¹

… what is the antidote?… it begins with killing the filibuster and passage of voting rights legislation… it then moves on to legislation to curb the spreading of disinformation, such as a modern day Fairness Doctrine… there are freedom of speech issues with it for sure, but propaganda masquerading as opinion is presently extremely unhealthy to society… one has to be held accountable for spreading demonstrably false information when it is done willfully, maliciously and/or for selfish and political reasons… there should be certain speech, sharing and topics of conversation that are banned altogether, as in Germany and some other European countries, where the ideology and symbology of White Supremacy and Nazism are banned…

… i don’t believe a society can function well with absolute freedom of the individual, there need to be boundaries… a certain amount of individual freedom must be given up for a greater good… the balance of individual freedom vs. greater good should be managed by substantive debate in the public and a continuous review and revision of the curbs, but the curbs need to be there…

01 First Thoughts:

… Fiona, evil dog… she is determined that i will not sleep… she got restless at 1:30 AM, for 1 1/2 hours i tried to ignore her, she would not settle down… i got little more than three hours sleep… my whole day will be disrupted… this has been a pretty sucky week between restless dogs and mother-in-laws having car accidents… the one good thing happened yesterday, a young woman friend was highly complimentary of some photographic work i shared on FB…

… right wing conservatives in Tennessee have gone bat shit crazy… putting an end to vaccination outreach for children… not just COVID, all normal childhood vaccines… the state’s director of vaccination programs was summarily fired for sending out a memo reminding vaccine providers that teens older than 14 didn’t have to get parental permission to get vaccinated, which is actual state law… a whole lot of unnecessary sickness and death will be the result… why?, because politicians are stoking the culture wars in hopes of getting elected… the situation is so bad that Fitch, a bond rating company, is considering lowering the United States Government bond rating from AAA status… because of the political situation… there has to be a better way… maybe politicians need to be a professionally licensed class of workers and there should be severe penalties for disinformation…

… i am fed up with just about everything that intrudes on my life right now… just about everything…

06 I Wish:

… i could be sure that my country isn’t heading to a very bad place, but i can’t…

01 First Thoughts

… bird singing brought me to, such a nice way to wake up, with the birds, unless you have a summer job at the Ford Motor plant and the birds mean you have to get up and go to work on the assembly line… took a few years before i enjoyed the sound of birds at dawn again…

… trip to have lunch and get goodies at S’s restaurant was a success, especially for H, who craves getting out and seeing family…

… i made a post to Micro.blog and shared it to FB, not much attention either place, but that’s ok, i am making the record in a place that isn’t trying to collect all my data and sell me things… i am focusing my attention on Micro.blog, nice community, add free… none of my geographically local friends are on it that i know of, but i am slowly making new acquaintances from around the world…

… it is raining out… i can hear the rain splashing on the pavement outside my studio window… it is cooler too… speaking of which, my desktop fan should arrive today… hoping it will make my studio bearable to work in when the heat returns as it is supposed to this week…

… Heather Cox Richardson and The Economist Magazine both talking about the perilous time for democracy our country is passing through… the alarm bells are being sounded… HCR’s post talks about the parallels between now and the time leading up to the Civil War, and, hard to believe, it was worse then… the Economist article points to the changes in the power to certify and administer elections as the greater threat compared to legislation that restricts voting and some claim is targeted to communities that vote more Democratic than Republican… in the 1860’s, Republican Party resistance (the Republicans were the more liberal party back then) and public disgust eventually preserved democracy… it’s not predictable which way things are going to go in the next few years… for the moment, Democrats have greater control over the leavers of Federal government than the Republicans had in the 1860’s, which puts them in a stronger position to resist…

01 First Thoughts

… no middle of the night waking by either dog, but Chas is ready promptly at 4 AM… it’s ok, no alcohol last night and in bed more or less on time…

… the heat should break today… there isn’t anything abnormal about a few days of this kind of heat at this time of year… not like the Pacific Northwest where temperatures are breaking records, and in the case of British Columbia, setting an all time record… 116 degrees!…

… this morning’s Heather Cox Richardson is all about how the oil and gas industry are lobbying states for legislation that favors the fossil fuel industry and makes it harder to pursue green energy strategies… the problem with capitalism… money equals power and big oil and gas have lots of money… interests are entrenched… numerous states depend substantially on the oil and gas industry for jobs and revenue… we should be better at adjusting but the market capitalist system often makes it difficult to do what is beneficial in the long run…

… a sweet story about Gertrude Tate and Alice Austin love affair in Brain Pickings… Alice Austin was a pioneering photographer… Maria Popova describes her work as brilliant, i am not as clear that it was, but she was both pursuing photography and loving a woman when both were difficult to do… i think her genius was in just getting out and doing it, recording people, in dignified portraits… here is an example…

Street-cleaner at 34th Street, New York City, part of Alice Austen’s 1896 series Street Types of New York. (Alice Austen House archive.)

… trying out Craft after a high recommendation from a Micro.blog community member… trying to see where it might fit into my workflow…

… the internet is so freaking slow this AM… that is what i hoped i was leaving behind when i came home… what gives?…

01 First Thoughts

… i often wish i could hit the ground running and that profound thoughts would pop out of my mind and course through my fingers to the keyboard and into the digital nether lands… profound thoughts don’t happen often and how ready i am to run generally depends on how much wine i had for dinner the night before… last night was not bad in the wine department, so i am fairly ready to go today…

… it looks cloudy and possibly a bit foggy… might be a day to photograph the harbors, boats in the mists are very photogenic…

… news that Rudi Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in New York and will likely be disbarred… an amazing fall for a former SDNY prosecutor and Mayor of NYC… it boggles the mind… does the lust for power really overwhelm all other rationality?…

… continued spreading of conspiracy theory around the country, centered around the big lie, has raised concerns of violence going forward, especially in August, the month 45 has told his followers he will be reinstated as president of the USA… i never thought i would live through such insane times…

… dogs starting to be restless upstairs… i will have to go get them soon…

… back from a walk with dogs out to Dicken’s Farm Preserve… dogs fiercely on the hunt going out, more leisurely coming back… the Bull Thistle is spreading and starting to grow to stature described…

… the thought that, photographically, i am circling around something but unable to pin down what that is…

03 Voting Rights

… an epic battle is playing out, the likes of which we have not seen since the Civil War… at least, it seems that way to me… there are gaps in my knowledge of history…

… the battle is about who gets to vote and the shape of government in the US will be strongly impacted depending on which side we land on… enfranchising a limited, mostly white, segment of the population or as much of the population as possible… that is, how much of a democracy will our democracy be?…

… at present, the limit the franchise contingent has the upper hand… the coming month or two are critical…

… a vote was held in the Senate this week on whether to startdebate on S1 (For The People Act)… Republicans successfully filibustered…

… congress will recess and reconvene in the middle of July… all eyes will be on whether the Democrats can modify the filibuster rule to allow voting rights legislation to be passed…

04 For The People

… today the Senate will vote on whether to begin debate on the For The People Act or S1… it is widely expected that Republicans will prevent that from happening… what happens next will be interesting… will Manchin and Sinema begin reconsidering their position on the filibuster as at least Manchin has indicated he might?… all eyes on Washington this week…

02 Heather Cox Richardson

… HCR’s post this morning is mostly about voting rights and the strident efforts of conservatives to restrict them across the country at the state level…

… this week the Senate will vote on the For The People Act which enforces from the federal level increased access to voting and ends partisan gerrymandering…

… Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has propose compromises, republicans are trying to hold the line… if they do, back over to Manchin and the filibuster question…

… a significant week for the course of democracy in this country…

03 For The People

… this morning’s Heather Cox Richardson post suggests there is movement on the voting rights front… Senator Joe Manchin has made some proposals on voting rights, which were backed by Stacey Abrams… he has also indicated a willingness to modify the rules of the filibuster, only 55 senators would be needed to pass legislation and 60 senators would be required to keep a filibuster going… meanwhile, a Republican running for office in Florida appears to have threatened to hire a Russian hit squad to eliminate his opponent in the primary… hmmm…

_ The G7 leaders offered a visible show of solidarity, with leaders talking and laughing together. Its statement repeated U.S. President Joe Biden’s slogan that we will “build back better,” and it painted a world that addresses climate change, prevents the exploitation of labor, demands gender equality, and protects human rights._¹

… a world (in which humans) address climate change, prevent human exploitation, demand gender equality and protect human rights… these are good things, things every human should want, but power dynamics being what they are, autocracies are still a viable alternative… one could argue, an emerging dominant alternative… it is hard to imaging these things prevailing under autocratic leadership…

… i am getting tired of the news claiming legislators are afraid of 45, or that Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnel are shilling for 45… BS!… the individuals leading the Republican party are not interested in Democracy… they are interested in power in perpetuity… they are seizing the moment to try to bring that about…

… her daily brief is depressing… one can decide whether to have a good or bad day based on reading her brief for the day… today, it is mostly about Republican refusal to compromise on anything, or, conduct an adequate investigation of the January 6 insurrection…

… ordered C a book and gift card for their birthday, happy birthday C!…

… we leave for Block Island today… i am looking forward to R&R… a glance at the weather indicates it will be much cooler when we get there… one would think that being semi-retired the R&R is redundant, but changing environment and having a different attitude about what needs doing during the day is significant…

… trying to make inroads into community on micro.blog, slow going, but signs i might be gaining traction… replies to posts would be the true sign, haven’t had any of those yet…

… Heather Cox Richardson trying to hold on to hope that Senator Joe Manchin will agree to something that moves voting rights legislation forward, even if a less ambitious reform… he apparently believes that the For The People Act is too partisan… the obvious elephant in the room is the Republican elephant which is busy enacting partisan voting rights legislation across the country… i am beginning to wonder if we are in that pivotal moment when democracy gets lost and it is authoritarian oligarchs from here on out… at present, the only firewall will be the determination of voters to overcome the barriers… while things feel so much better under the Biden/Harris administration, there is plenty of reason to be alarmed and concerned… hopefully, HCR is right about Manchin…

… again, following up on note 05 from today, i find my way to the digital exhibition On Protest and Mourning at the Caribbean Cultural Center & African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) website… i read curator Grace Aneiza Ali’s statement…

Protest is a form of mourning; and mourning is a form of protest. Throughout these images we see a consistent narrative, a shared language, a call to action: we must resist slipping into numbness, we must always cry out against a state’s militarized violence, against the emotional and mental brutalities it wields. And, as a matter of survival, we must always cry out for the Black lives loved and lost.¹

… Black Lives Matter…

… relative to the exhibit at The New Museum, i think, CCCADI is better positioned to curate a visual art representation of the oppression, grief and protest of black and brown people…

… i am ambivalent about doing this in the cultural institutions of white patriarchy… i think it is important to have a conversation, a conscience… to admit the wrong of systematic oppression… but i can’t let go of the idea that oppressive cultural and political structures have a huge capacity for self critique without changing… the object of the self critique being to say, we see, we understand… maybe some do, but overall, there is little change as a result…

… this article by Joshua Tait in The Bulwark reviews the history of Anti-Democratic conservatives… it is centered around William F. Buckley and the National Review… it is a long but worthwhile read… whether we retain Democracy or not is the defining issue of the next two to four years…