Far East Cynic

Happy Boxing Day!

When I lived in Europe and had a British TV service ( which had far better programming than my American counterpart), I enjoyed the day after Christmas. In Britain and many parts of the Commonwealth, Boxing Day was initially an additional holiday in the Christmas tide meant to give gifts

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Recent Reading

2021 is refusing to be a decent year, it seems, what with now the omicron surge of the COVID virus and the determined refusal of so many people to take public health measures seriously. It’s a shame that so many people are having to deal with this at a time

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I’ve more than earned the right to feel the rage that I feel.

Without a doubt, the last few months have been depressing, to say the least. First came the Delta resurgence, which hit many places – even ones that were here to fore considered “safe.” Then, it was made worse in states like Florida and Texas, where their governments just turned a

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The great resignation is not what the oligarchs think it is.

One of the things that led me away from the Republican party forever was its descent into madness – punctuated by a fiendish adaptation of cruelty and selfishness. What I could not abide, as one who actually has made a study of economics, is the way they blithely dismissed the

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Unlinked and out. The steady decline of Linked In.

According to Linked In’s own mission statement, the purpose of Linked In is: ” is simple: connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. … Today, LinkedIn leads a diversified business with revenues from membership subscriptions, advertising sales, and recruitment solutions under the leadership of Ryan Roslansky.” If

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Waving the bloody shirt.

On Twitter a couple of days ago, a brilliant guy named David Neiwert published a long Twitter thread on the tactic that conservatives and their deranged followers have used to discredit valid criticism of the atrocities they turn a blind eye to. The tactic is known as “waving the bloody

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20 years.

Over the past 10 years, I have increasingly come to dread the arrival of September 11th. It is the day the United States will remember a terrible criminal act in its history. 2977 people died that day from a brazen terror attack pulled off by 19 terrorists, mostly of Saudi

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Cry, the beloved country.

Among the many things I have come to despise our tea swilling, Galtian, Trump-humping, overlords for, is how they have ruined any celebration of national pride. Turning the American flag into a conservative litmus test of sorts makes it almost impossible to look at the symbol with a combination of

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Your mileage may vary…….

Today is June 23, the 42nd anniversary of the day I made the biggest mistake of my life, getting married only 6 weeks out of college. The intervening years have amplified how big a mistake that was and how much better it would have been if I had spent my

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The captives will forge their own chains

This is a warning. If there is one thing that can be learned from Senator Joe Manchin’s cowardly failure this week, there are too many Americans who have no understanding of this country at all. But, unfortunately, all of Joe Manchin’s talk about the need for a bipartisan bill for

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