So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.

Hello dear subscribers. I know…it’s been a while…again. You may have been wondering where the hell I’ve been and why I’ve been AWOL from this Blog for so long.

You may now be wondering who the hell I am, and why you subscribed to my Blog in the first place. I really can’t answer that for you but I can tell you how much I appreciate you doing so.

The truth is, I’ve been busy writing the next book and developing my new website, which now includes an integrated Blog. And, oh yeah, sheltering in place under the California Gov Gav imposed Coronavirus Quarantine for over three weeks now. And trying very, very hard not to completely lose my shit. (I am now convinced that I will never be able to do hard time. Or easy time for that matter.)

Speaking of which, I hope you are all doing OK, staying healthy with the quarantine workout, doing a good job of washing your hands until they fall off, and practicing social distancing. My wife and I think we’ve both had different versions of COVID-19, but it was mild and we seem to be doing fine now. Let’s be careful out there, keep calm, take care of ourselves and each other, and hopefully we can all get through this insanity and come out on the other side sooner than later.

Because my new website has a Blog capability, it makes sense to switch over to that platform and keep everything all in one place. So I won’t be posting here any longer – which isn’t really that big of a deal since I haven’t been posting much of anything here anyway. The good/bad news is that you can still follow me there if you like and it’s easy to sign up with your email to subscribe to THAT Blog if/when I do post things there.

I hope you do continue to follow me and have my updates continue to arrive and clutter up your Inbox whenever I post something new.

Until then, so long, farewell, to you, my friends. Goodbye for now, until we meet again. And thanks again for your support over the years.

Quote Of The Day – Winston Churchill

Well hello there dear subscribers. It’s been a while…again. I know. Sorry. Been busy. You know how it is. Anyway… I’m finally back. And to celebrate, here’s a topical Quote Of The Day from Sir Winston Churchill – British statesman (Prime Minister), army officer, writer and overall badass.

Although expressed some time ago, it seems even more timely and relevant now when it comes to our world leaders when he said, “We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”

Quote of the Day – Martin Luther King Jr.

Today you get two great quotes for the price of one – both are very timely.

While we honor the great Martin Luther King Jr., on this holiday, today is a good day to pause and remind ourselves that: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and yours all the best during this holiday season and that Santa brought you everything you wanted this year. (Books make great gifts!) Thanks for all your support in 2017. Here’s to a kinder, friendlier and prosperous 2018 for us all.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas! God bless us everyone.

Quote Of The Day – Robert Frost

Today’s Quote Of The Day – or rather This Month’s Quote Of The Day as it’s been a while since the last one (sorry) – comes from the one and only Robert Frost, who was an American poet and he knew it, perhaps best known for The Road Not Taken. He was also born in San Francisco, which means he was probably a Giants fan for a couple of years, when they didn’t suck. Anyway, here’s to discovering.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”

– William Arthur Ward

While this has indeed been a very weird year we all have a lot to be grateful for, and this is a great opportunity to focus on and acknowledge all the positive things in our lives.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday filled with lots of  love, appreciation, gratitude, laughter, a big-ass turkey with all the trimmings, and football (yes, we’ll be watching football as always) with family, friends, pets and loved-ones.

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have a highly-festive, semi-spooky, candy-filled, rock-free Halloween today!

Let’s look at the bigger picture here.

Hey look, some sanity!

I encourage you to watch these three minutes from Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen talking about what Trump doesn’t understand about the national anthem and the right to protest, courtesy of Media Matters for America.

Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen talking about what Trump doesn’t understand about the national anthem and the right to protest.

And by the way, just a little reminder: the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag says “…indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

That’s the whole point of Colin Kaepernick’s protest — as a country we’ve lost sight of those values, and we can’t look the other way among wrongdoings against African Americans and minorities in the United States. If Colin or anyone one chooses not “to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” then that’s their right to do so. It’s not being disrespectful to our military – its because of our military and everyone who’s fought and died for every American’s rights of equality, life, liberty and happiness that he and anyone else can choose do so.

As Dale states in this video clip:

“The young black athletes are not disrespecting America or the military by taking a knee during the anthem; they are respecting the best thing about America.”

I think the 49ers original statement last year about Kaepernick’s protest said it the best:

“The national anthem is and always will be a special part of the pre-game ceremony. It is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.”

And now we have a president trying to take away Americans’ right to peacefully protest against something they/we feel is wrong by saying they should be fired for doing so, through social media of all things. He’s saying that any protest you don’t agree with, is a protest that should be stopped. Those thoughtless remarks not only miss the entire point of the protests, but creates more division in our country than ever.

For the record, I love my country, I love our flag, and I love our military – and I bet most, if not all, of those athletes protesting last weekend do too. It’s a reminder that we need to be doing a better job as a country (for which the flag stands) of being “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” And Trump needs to be doing a better job of being a president — for everyone. Maybe he can start by actually reading the Constitution.

Let’s maybe look beyond the symbolic gesture being made during the national anthem and more at the larger issue the protest is representing, and do something about it.

Quote Of The Day – G. K. Chesterton

Howdy. It’s been a while. Sorry.

Today’s much anticipated and long over due Quote Of The Day comes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton, or G.K. Chesterton, a British journalist, novelist, poet, biographer, and essayist active during 1900-1936. He is often referred to as the prince of paradox by “making his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories, after first turning them inside out,” as described by Time magazine. Chesterton is probably best known for his popular series of short stories featuring the fictional priest/detective character Father Brown, weird glasses and bad haircuts.

What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding?

I was reminded over the weekend how much I love living in the Bay Area, and am extremely proud of how San Francisco and its major Ed Lee, residents and our connected community handled the various protests taking place on Saturday.

Everything from shutting down the far right extremist group Patriot Prayer rally at Crissy Field by encouraging hundreds of dog owners to come and carpet the field in advance with lots and lots of dog poo (which they did) to show how welcome they were, to the peaceful counter protests taking part throughout the city, to the “Peace, Love and Understanding” rally downtown that we attended as a family and with friends.

The brown carpet treatment at Crissy Field seemed to encourage the group to hastily change plans and move their event to Alamo Square Park. However, given the timing involved no permits were issued, which led to SFPD gating off and completely shutting down access to the park while local residents hung “Love Trumps Hate” signs on their homes and over 1,000 counter-protesters rallied at the foot of Alamo Square.

Patriot Prayer ultimately decided to flee to Pacifica, about 30 minutes south of San Francisco, to hold a “news conference” in a remote location stating their civil rights and freedom of speech were violated, and all they wanted to do was to “promote love and peace and freedom.” I smell dog shit.

In reality, they were granted a permit for their original planned event at Crissy Field – they chose not to move forward. No rights were violated, and their freedoms of speech and to lawfully assemble in public ware not denied by the local government.

Freedom of speech is one thing; freedom of hate speech is quite another. Spreading hate speech, discriminating and inciting violence is not covered by the First Amendment. Hate speech can not go unchecked. While Patriot Prayer’s leader Joey Gibson has publicly denounced Nazis, the KKK and other racist groups, Patriot Prayer has a proven record of attracting white supremacists and neo-nazis at their events, which often results in violent confrontations, and Mr. Gibson knows this.

Meanwhile, we enjoyed a peaceful afternoon of music, art, activism and love at the Peace, Love and Understanding rally in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza in front of City Hall, with Michael Franti and Spearhead headlining the entertainment. The event was really well organized, safe and delivered as promised; it was family-friendly and relatively free of political speeches – just people of all types coming together and celebrating our differences. There were no anarchists anywhere to be seen and no bullshit. Or dog shit.

While my wife Laura and I aren’t convinced that public rallies change the minds of those we tend to gather to oppose (peacefully or not), we agree that it’s generally better to act than not – whether to show our children what is right, to make ourselves feel better by doing something about the situation, or simply to convince those coming out of the woodwork on the wrong side of what is right that they need to change or go back under the rocks they crawled out from. It was also a really good excuse to celebrate the diversity, open-mindedness, acceptance and tolerance that makes San Francisco and the Bay Area such an amazing place to live and be a part of.

Only one person was arrested at the protests throughout the day — for public intoxication at Alamo Park. Mayor Ed Lee summed it up best when he said, “San Francisco residents made sure the face of love and compassion dominated over hate speech and incitement of violence.” The Patriot Prayer people ultimately returned to an essentially empty Crissy Field later in the day but it went largely unnoticed.

It gives me hope that collectively we can work together to hopefully help make America civil again.