A C. T U. A L. L Y

Some days, it seems like things never change.  Same same Covid, more extreme weather, another mean Tweet, perpetually dysfunctional institutions, and so on and so forth.  But when I actually look around me, I realize that's not really true.  Every day is different.   I see this on my daily walks through Gleisdrieck Park and while running errands in my Berlin neighborhood.   I see it in the woods and around the lakes within easy reach by bike or S-bahn.   What was blooming yesterday may have succumbed to a rain battering overnight.   What was just a promise a week ago is now a potential fulfilled.   And what was seeded in tree wells by a stealth Johnny Appleweed some months ago has recently been harvested. Here are this summer’s new Berlin arrivals, starting with... WEED.  It's everywhere!                              June 3, 2021     Same...

As we witness the House Republican Caucus boycott the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, and as the chances of federal voting rights legislation dim, context is key.   The fetid brew that has subsumed U.S. politics boils and bubbles, toils and troubles.   The biggest pot stirrer is the tfg (I won’t dignify him with capitalization).   Unbidden to our TV screens, but forced upon us apparently by the economic exigencies of the mass media, we watch tfg make kings out of primary paupers and regale his loyal captive audience with two-hour guided tours of his deranged mind.   We observe him grifting his personality cult supporters out of their hard-earned minimum wages, as he runs his entirely predictable parallel presidency out of Mar-a-Logo (no typo).   The inevitable question is begged:   Will he run again? I say without a doubt, YES.   Some of my politically engaged friends counter with an emphatic, NO. ...