I’ve lived in both big cities and small towns. In big cities, I’m usually anonymous and can blend in as just another nameless person on the street. Most people don’t even really see me. There are some advantages to that but for more than twenty years I’ve lived in rural southwest Washington State. Here you get to know people. I can hardly go to town without stopping to talk with an old friend or two. I’ve finalized business deals by shaking hands. I go to church and community meetings with local elected officials and count several as friends. At this level, reputation and integrity matters.

Perhaps that’s why I don’t put much faith in social media.

Like most people, when I meet a candidate it is usually at a rally or similar gathering. Security personnel and a throng of voters surround them. That makes it tough to ask questions. I might be able to ask one or two but there won’t be any discussion. I’ve grown adapt at surfing the internet for information about candidates. However, I recently had the chance to sit down and talk with congressional candidate Joe Kent at length.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) recently defended a proposed government ban on gas stoves. In the embedded video she supports her own use of a gas stove and later said, “This is about a decision about what may be sold and regulations in the far future, OK? So everyone, just take the temperature down a little bit. No secret government agency is going to bust down your door and take your gas stove away.” She is probably correct about that but, only because the federal government has a better method to make you comply.

During the COVID pandemic, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan poured $400 million into election offices across the country. This massive infusion of what came to be known as ZuckerBucks promoted controversial practices such as unrequested mail-in ballots, ballot curing, and widespread drop boxes. Did Zuckerberg spend this money to make elections more open and fair during the pandemic or was this a partisan effort to assist Joe Biden? Rigged: The Zuckerberg Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump is a 41-minute documentary that examines the issue.

I was flipping through TV channels earlier today and stopped for a moment on an interview with Kathy Griffin. For those of you that don’t remember, Griffin is the alleged comedian that in 2017 decided it would be funny to have a picture taken of her with the mock, bloody, decapitated head, of President Trump. I changed the channel.

Military veterans and those who died deserve respect. That was the headline of Julie McDonald’s column on September 6th. I believe and support those words and expected to agree with Julie as I read her column. My expectations changed quickly.

The Public Theater of New York City recently decided that it would be a good idea to stage Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” in a modern setting. In this version of the play the dictator, Julius Caesar, looks a lot like Donald Trump and, of course, in act three he’s murdered in order to save the country.

I’ll start this off by stating that Donald Trump was not my first choice for president. Early in the primary season I believe there were seventeen Republicans running for the office. Trump would not have been in my top ten. I’m a conservative. During most of the primary I had no idea what Donald Trump was, other than a better choice than Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.