The Cargo Cult and the Ballot Box

Featured image: members of John Frum cargo cult, Vanuatu On February 2, 2020 we will focus our attention on Super Bowl LIV.  Fans will declare their loyalties through banners and bumper stickers. They will debate strategies and tactics. They will support their claims with polls and pundits.  After the smoke clears they will boast of […]

Of Water and Walls and Weapons

Featured Image: Valens Aqueduct, Istanbul In our last installment I mistakenly referred to the Strait of Bosporous as a “river.”  Kudos to Ernest Lewicki for correcting me — and for leading me to explore the mechanisms by which Constantinople ensured its water supply.   Though he gets all the credit for the famous Aqueduct which bears his name,  Valens‘ primary […]

Whither Byzantium

  On June 29, 1956 Dwight Eisenhower authorized a 41,000-mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” to ensure safe, speedy and reliable transcontinental travel — and evacuations in the event of nuclear war.  Today much of the Interstate Highway System has exceeded its design life.  Unforeseen traffic and congestion stress concrete and commuters alike. In […]

Oy and Thou, or: a Hebrew Comes To Hampden

(Featured image: the meme which made me a nationally recognized White Supremacist) Brian Kresge is very concerned about Maine’s anti-Semitic Republicans and has taken to the Maine Beacon to share his feelings.  Kresge is not alone in his fears. Jewish Americans have long tended to vote Democratic and only two of our 36 Jewish Congressfolk identify as Republican.  Yet there are […]

Of Maine, Mogadishu and Morality Pets

In the first version of my earlier post, I incorrectly described Hamdia Ahmed as Somali Bantu.  Hamdia reached out and let me know her family is not Bantu but ethnic Somali. While she was diligent in seeing my error corrected, she was unfailingly gracious during our exchange.  I apologize for my earlier misunderstandings and will […]

The Land of Dirigo and Bakshish

In 1991 Somalia’s government collapsed: in 1992 came drought and famine.  Things have not improved since then.  Today over 1 million Somalis have been driven from their homes.  Many have found their way to Kenyas’s Daadab refugee complex, a sprawling encampment along the Kenya/Somali border.  In late 1997 Hamdia Ahmed was born along her mother’s 370-mile trek to […]

A Maine Beacon on Blue Astroturf

If you doubted that I am a nationally recognized White Supremacist, now you have proof.  The Maine Beacon says not only am I nationally recognized, I am the evil genius bringing “White Supremacist Troll Storm tactics” to Maine.  Since the Beacon “features rigorous reporting, political analysis and smart, progressive voices from across the state,” I presume they […]

Alinsky on the Kennebec

(For those coming in late, Something Rotten in Maine and Hallowell Shakedown will provide a bit of context). In 1971 a grouchy old radical named Saul Alinsky published Rules for Radicals.  Thirty-seven years later a gay Kenyan Muslim Communist took Alinsky’s advice all the way to the White House.  Or so the story goes.  Alinsky has become one of […]

Hallowell Shakedown

Once upon a time (OK, in late July 2019) an angry young woman named Mackenzie Swift spoke out in favor of DOXXing the “Nazis” and “White Supremacists” involved in Tom Kawczynski’s Maine for Mainers group.  Several MFM members noted that Swift had a link to her workplace, a popular Hallowell establishment named Slates Restaurant and Bakery.  […]