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Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard
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The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back:  two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed!  Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore.  The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil.  We farmed, too, of course.  All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor.  Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them.  Even when all they wanted to do w
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Are You There?

I have been looking at the information that Google provides about this blog, particularly whom the audience is, by country.  Nothing is provided about individual readers; nothing at all.  And that is good:  we ought to be able to read things without it becoming a public event. Most of the people who read this blog--the vast majority--are in the United States.  That makes sense.  That is where I am, who I am, and what I write about, mostly.  It seldom happens that anyone responds with a comment, but I am always delighted when they do.  No!   Almost always delighted.  There have been a few nonsense responses--nonsense strings of words, and what appear to be barely intelligible religious scoldings--but all-but-a-few comments have been appreciated. Here are the facts--real facts, not alternative facts: In the last month, in addition to the preponderance of pageviews in the U.S., the most activity from readers has come from France, China, Portugal, Romania, and Russia.  I think I
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