I watched the entire two hours of Oprahs sit down with Meghan and Harry, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was hardly alone: it was the most-watched T.V. program since last years Oscars. Of course, the interviews fallout was immediate, as everyone knew it would be. Harry and Meghan dropped some bombshells, especially the part […]

My father was a racist, and so were all his friends. This was back in the Bronx, in the 1950s. We lived in a crowded apartment building on a crowded street in a crowded borough. All of the men were Jews, the children of immigrants from European shtetls. None were professionals. They had frayed white […]

According to FiveThirtyEight, there are 17 congressional districts where at least 70 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white, at least 30 percent identified as evangelical Christian in 2010, and voters sided with Trump in the competitive portion of the 2016 GOP nomination contest. Here are those 17 congressional districts: Share of populati...

Ive been reviewing Csaba Szakals En Garde wines for many years. For some reason, he continues to be interested in my impressions, even though Ive been retired for nearly five years. So he has sent me six of his new releases, two Pinots from 2018 and four Bordeaux-style red wines from the 2017 vintage. Hungarian-born […]

I was watching todays Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on domestic security, in which FBI director Robert Wray was grilled by both Democrats and Republicans. My takeaway, which I find interesting but also disturbing, is that neither the FBI nor its sister intelligence agencies has any list of domestic terror organizations, such as the Proud Boys ...

I watched the debate last night in the House of Representatives on Bidens $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, AKA the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Republicans, predictably, resisted it to the bitter end; not a single one of the Insurrectionists voted for it. They couldnt criticize it for content, because they cant: America needs that infusion [̷...

Politics, schmolitics. Time for some pretty pictures. The weather has been warm and dry for months. Even though were technically deep into winter, were having False Spring, and everything that blossoms is partying like its May. Here are a few of our growing things I saw on my walk through Oakland yesterday. Maybe some of […]

Its so obvious what Republicans are doing concerning Jan. 6: theyre blaming anyone and anything they can find, except for the one person who actually caused and incited the Insurrection: Donald Trump. Never mind that everyone in his right mind knows that this was entirely Trumps doing. The violence, destruction and death were desired by […]

Senator Tom Cotton is upset. is On Fox News website, he called Joe Bidens nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, Xavier Becerra, a partisan culture warrior and said that he, Cotton–an ultra-conservative Republican from Arkansaswill lead the charge in the Senate to defeat Becerra. Well, okay: from Cottons perspective, the fact that B...

One of the most famous moments in the modern history of the former Soviet Union occurred in 1956, when then-Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev bitterly denounced Joseph Stalins excesses, especially his mass purges, and for fostering a cult of personality. This cult,explains the Stanford University political scientist Jan Plamper, consisted of the syst...

The hottest story in the Bay Area right now is that of the Oakland Chinatown liquor store owner who saw a woman being mugged on the street, grabbed his gun (for which he had a permit), rushed outside, and tried to protect her. The store owner, whose name isnt being released, fired four shots into […]

Forty years ago, Carl Sagans monumental book, Cosmos, and its corresponding Public Broadcasting Service T.V. series, brought science to the American people in a way nothing previously ever had. The book was a runaway best-seller, immediately selling more than 500,000 copies and spending 70 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List. The series [&...

For some reason the shutdown is really starting to get to me. Even though Ive been sheltering-in-place like most of you for the better part of a year, Im feeling the walls closing in more tightly than ever. And Im climbing those walls in boredom. Maybe its the time of year: the dead middle of […]

There are still a lot of trump supporters out there. For the life of me, I dont know why. But I have to at least try to understand. For example, a friend of mine, a successful New York transplant to Oakland who happens to be of Jewish extraction (same as me) and a lifetime liberal, […]

Its a weird time in America, which is really saying something, since its been weird here for a long time. But this current time is weirder than usual. We have the vaccines outbut few can get them. COVID seems like its winding downbut there are all those variants that could fuel it back up again. […]

I dont like American evangelicals who are tryingwith some successto turn this country into their own theocratic dictatorship. Theyve been busy burrowing into the fabric of our nation for a century or longer, but they entered their heyday when Ronald Reagan, a Trump precursor who realized the political value of southern evangelicals in the run-up [&...

I form an instant antipathy to people who dont wear masks in crowded public spaces. I cant generalize about who they are, because theyre all types: black, white, Asian, Latino, old, young, whatever. The thought that forms in my mind when I see them is that theres something mentally sick about them: its as if […]

[This is a transcript of a conversation between the controversial Republican congresswoman and the indicted Trump supporter. I obtained it through a friend with a high position in the American security community, who requested anonymity because h/she was not authorized to disclose the information to me. This conversation was recorded on Thursday ni...

You can say whatever you want to about nextdoor.com, but one things for sure: its an accurate reflection of whats on peoples minds at any given time. I value that. We need to have these conversations about important issues, especially during this pandemic. I realize that discussion can get heated, but whats wrong with that? […]

I hope you wont mind if I do a little venting. Its about the Mayor of my city, Oakland, and the City Council. The Mayor is Libby Schaaf. Shes thinking of the next vacant U.S. Senators seat from California. Everybody knows Dianne Feinstein wont be there much longer, and Libby has Senatorial stars in her […]

Bidens early approval rating is refreshingly highI saw one at 59%, which is way higher than trump ever had. And everyone is saying that these first days of his administration are going well. His executive actions, while perhaps not much cared about by the average Joe or Jill, are playing well to the core constituencies […]

Its much better to pursue things that are meaningful, than things that make you happy. — Jordan Peterson A friend turned me on to Jordan Peterson, the author and professor. Apparently, Im one of the few people in America who had never heard of him! So I went to YouTube, found some videos, and have […]

As near as I can tell, here are the priorities of the trump/insurrectionist/crazy wing of the Republican Party. I may have missed a few, but these are the main ones. In no particular order, they are: Anti-vaxxers. These people are characterized by paranoid fantasies, such as Dr. Fauci is implanting DNA chips in his vaccine, […]

Poor Gavin Newsom. He just cant catch a break. Hes been under fire for a while, supposedly due to his COVID response. Republicans are circulating a petition in California to recall him from office. And todays San Francisco Chronicle has a front page story claiming that even some Democrats are fumed over what they claim […]

I have to say I agree with Republicans on one thing: COVID financial relief should be targeted to people who really need it, rather than widely distributed to people like me and my family, who dont. The Democratic plan, as best as I can determine, is to send $1,400 stimulus payments to Americans. (Thats in […]

Maxine sent me this link to an article by a professor of religion, John Carlson, about Americas civic religion, which he defines as a scholarly term for the common understanding of principles, ideals, narratives, symbols and events that describe the American experience of democracy in light of higher truths. (Carlson adds, If you don't like […...

A common perception of the events of Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol is that it was the first time in American history that a band of criminals tried to stage a coup dtat against the U.S. government. Were used to coups, both successful and unsuccessful, occurring in banana republics and authoritarian regimes. The idea […]

Were going to have to get used to news thats a lot more boring than what weve had over the last four years of the trump administration. Whether you liked him or notand I assume most of you didntyou have to admit that trump gave good T.V. He once said (I paraphrase) that he was […]

This is a day to celebrate. An historic date. Weve come to the end of the most digusting, deplorable epoch in modern U.S. history, and overthrown a psychotic monster and his thieving family. More than four years agoin September, 2016I declared on my blog that I was abandoning wine as its central theme and adopting […]

I generally enjoyed my four years at Jackson Family Wines, but there was one incident that left a really bad taste in my mouth. It concerned a rather bitchy salesman down in Southern California who worked for JFWs distribution company. A large group of us had been invited to lunch at a fancy restaurant. Its […]

I had a complicated relationship with my mother, Gertrude. She and my father had not expected to have another baby after my older sister was born. But I came along in 1946 and quickly became my mothers favorite. She adored me and I adored her, in the classic Oedipal way. I can remember being very […]

After he left office, Trump ran into all sorts of problems. When the moving vans arrived at Mar-a-Lago with his and Melanias White House stuff, they were pelted with eggs and bags of feces, as angry Palm Beachers let the Trumps know how they felt about them. The West Palm Beach City Council passed a […]

Theres a lot of hand-wringing in national security circles over two new apps, Signal and Telegram. They both utilize so-called end-to-end encryption, which means (explains the New York Times) that no one but the sender and receiver can read its contents. Security professionals (Homeland Security, the F.B.I., Secret Service and so on) see at least [...

Anyone who reads my blog knows Im not a fan of evangelicals. Nearly 40 years ago I realized how radical, irrational, hateful and anti-American they arein their vicious homophobia, in their scientific ignorance, in their white supremacy, in their intolerance of other religions. When Trump came on the scene, with his sociopathic narcissism and obviou...

I realized today that Im treating coverage of this Insurrection as just the latest T.V. episode of the Trump Show, which Ive watched with a certain compulsion for more than four years. Its like getting hooked on The Sopranos or Homeland (which I did); every episode is better than the last, and all you want […]

So now, the Insurrectionists are planning a Million MAGA March on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. (In some instances, its being called the Million Militia March.) For the record, I call it the Million Moron March. Isnt that special? All those nice, patriotic Americans who celebrated Trump on Jan. 6 are coming back to Washington. They […]

There he goes! Where? We were in a sub-grouping of about 1,000 people, part of a huge group of hundreds of thousands that had come to Washington to hunt Trump down. People were fanning out all over the downtown area. Some headed over to Foggy Bottom, on rumors that Trump had a submarine waiting for […]

Trumps speech to the proud boys, immediately prior to the Jan. 6 Insurrection: Of course he started by trashing the Republican Party. Of course he played the victim. Of course he repeated his outrage about PenceAll he has to do is to trash the Constitution and declare trump the winner. Of course he felt sorry […]

What a day! Warnock wins in Georgia, and were waiting for Ossoffs victory to be declared. Trump gives his nasty little speech in less than 2 hours. The 13 Republican senators commit treason live on T.V.; what will Pence do? And the insane proud boys are about to try and launch their civil war on […]

When I moved to San Francisco in the winter of 1979-1980 to go to grad school, it was with the highest of high hopes. I was 33 years old, and in the process of putting the Sixties and Seventies behind me. The drugs and partying, the alternative hippie lifestyle no longer seemed suitable as I […]

In November of 2001, I went on vacation to Costa Rica, arriving on Nov. 18. The battle over the contested 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore was at its height and mounting in tension. Although I did a lot of touristy stuff during my week there (lots of museums, volcanoes, food […]

Ten years ago Dont Ask, Dont Tell was consigned to the ash heap of history. DADT had been the official policy of the Clinton administration, signed into law in 1993, which Clinton sold as a more humane approach to gay people in the U.S. military. Prior to it, gays had been strictly banned. After it, […]

I moved to San Francisco in 1979 with great hope in my heart. Finally, at last, my expedition across America had ended at the furthest point from where it started, New York City. San Francisco represented aspiration. I didnt quite know what I was looking for (aside from sex) but whatever it was, I knew […]

Happy 2021! Were all glad to see that wreck of a year, 2020, disappear in the rear-view mirror! Were also glad to see the orange pig, the catastrophe, the human detritus, the so-called 45th president of the United States, disappear into the trash bin of History, along with his wicked family and followers. Here are […]

Wednesday, June 14, 2021 The floor of the United States Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer presiding. He speaks into the microphone to galleries packed with spectators and media. Sen. Schumer: Good morning. The Senate is today assembled to hear evidence in the trial of Senator Joshua Hawley, of Missouri, on charges of Treason against [...

Whos the asshole, me or the guy Ill call Pooper? You tell me. Id never done Airbnb before; the process was new to me. Id been looking for a place to stay since early December. Following the death of my dog, Gus, Id decided to have my place remodeled. I needed to move out for […]

Jump the shark: referring to a television series or movie that reaches a point at which far-fetched events are included merely for the sake of novelty, indicative of a decline in quality. Back in 1977, the popular T.V. series, Happy Days, unwittingly added a neologism to the American vernacular when its writers had the character […]

Theres a widespread perception that Joe Biden will not run again. Hed be 82 in 2024, if he lives that long. Americans might not be comfortable re-electing a man who could easily die in office. Of course, Biden seems healthy now, and were likely, in the next several years, to see images of him on […]

Theres a meme out therea false one, as well seeaccording to which Trump accomplished a great deal, and might even have won re-election based on those accomplishments, were it not for his disastrous mishandling of the pandemic and the dislike of him by women because of his reprehensible personal qualities. What are Trumps supposed accomplishments? [...

I had my first lucid dream about Gus last night, more than three weeks after his death on Dec. 1. He was in the street in front of my house, leashless, sniffing everything in sight. We didnt have eye contact. I remember thinking, How amazing! Gus was dead, and now hes back! I know people […]