I wish a lot of things — and with certainty I can say we’ll be in sync on some of ’em. My generation got off easy, as all we were called to do was weigh information. But even that was too much of a burden. As we got more, we became less. Whatever your beliefs, they should be backed by your record (whether the truth is in your interests or not).

I’m old-fashioned that way — as that is what being principled is all about. Well, at least it used to be — in a time when things that once mean something, now mean nothing.

I wish a buck was still silver
It was back when the country was strong

Merle’s sorrowful song has an uplifting twist at the end, and without that final 45 seconds — you’d miss the meaning of the message.

That there’s something more to see is what this site is all about . . .

In DUKE, We’re Glad We Knew You: John Wayne’s Friends and Colleagues Remember His Remarkable Life — in the forward is a 1979 article that includes the following:

To him a handshake was a binding contract. When he was in the hospital for the last time and sold his yacht, The Wild Goose, for an amount far below its market value, he learned the engines needed minor repairs. He ordered those engines overhauled at a cost to him of $40,000 because he had told the new owner the boat was in good shape.

— The Unforgettable John Wayne by Ronald Reagan

This 60-second scene from The Searchers squares with the quote above, and it’s at the bedrock of my beliefs (backed by what I do):

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“I Told Ya, Didn’t I!”

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That the reaction is not to think it through, not to question, not to assemble facts, not to make arguments — but instead to wave banners and spout slogans such that you could hardly distinguish what they were doing from a manifesto that would come out of [does it matter?]

— Glenn Loury, Tucker Carlson Today

When the context suits you, such words are solid gold. What you do when it doesn’t — determines the worth of your word. Taking on the entire country by myself is worlds away from what everyone else is doing. Explaining America’s decline from decades of dishonesty and systematic self-delusion in the Gutter Games of Government: Is apples & oranges as it gets when compared to the transactional nature of news and social-media norms.

Understanding how seemingly unrelated events impact one another takes time and effort to digest.

You are being conditioned to do the exact opposite. All’s fair in The March of Folly and fraud on the The Yellow Brick Road — the path of America’s predictably counterproductive pursuits. Pay no mind to how many times we go backwards by the means in which you move forward . . .