The Bostonian Abroad

I'm so tired of the Democrats and Republicans and their stale positions on every single issue. I'm also tired of they ways both liberals and conservatives seem to download without question everything they watch or read or hear on the media serving their political mind-set. The way they parrot what they have heard, without questioning its validity, demonstrates a real lack of thought and skepticism on their parts, and this is most tiring of all. Worse still is how the moment you state your view on something, these same people are just waiting, drooling to put you in one camp or the other. It's like they are thinking, "Now what is this guy, a liberal or conservative?" They immediately want to see if you are friend or foe, and if you happen to have a view they deem in one camp or the other, they shove you into that camp and commence treating you like one of "them," ending even the chance of a meaningful conversation. Neither party represents me. Nor does...

I hate to speak ill of anyone or any organization, and my dislike of my time in the “Aloha State” has been thoroughly documented here over the years, but a recent annoyance has brought back to me the very reason I left that wretched island “paradise.” Now, don’t get me wrong. Hawaii is a beautiful place, for the most part, and the weather is the very best in the entire world. Nothing comes close to it. But the people, ohhhh, the PEOPLE!! They make it the hell it truly was for me, and the hell that it truly “IZ” for so many people there. To be diplomatic, I will not name the school at which I taught for my five-year tenure in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Y’all can figure it out somehow anyway, if you are Internet savvy. What set me off this time? I wrote a nice note to the students, faculty, and staff of the school sending them my well-wishes at this difficult time, which is the tragic event of the earthquake and tsunami of March 10, 2011. You see, I have taught a ton of stu...

I’ve been noticing a lot of talk recently about the end of the world. Not the usual rigmarole of 2012 or of Nostradamus, but of the imminent collapse of the dollar, the reversing of the magnetic poles, the loss of our magnetic field, and some lady named Saba or something who died long ago but supposedly made all kinds of predictions, the most recent of which is the advent of World War Three. Maybe it’s because I am into guns and watching a lot of channels on Youtube about guns and their attendant proponents, who all seem to be prepping in one way or another for the eventual (and they say inevitable) collapse of modern society. As if these people would really be able to survive very long in such a scenario. I think it would be more luck than anything that decides who lives and who gets trampled, burned, blown-up or even eaten when the “shit hits the fan.” I can understand being prepared for a Katrina-like situation, where society collapses for a short time before returning. You’d ...