The Russians invented it, we're playing it. Do you remember Christopher Walken in Deer Hunter, the epic film about the absurdity of the Viet Nam War? That classic scene when Walken was forced to play Russian roulette for the entertainment of his captors had me flinching in my seat as he pulled the trigger. When your life depends on chance, in Walken's case, 6 cylinders in a pistol chamber, one loaded, five empty. The chamber is spun around like a casino wheel, you aim the pistol at your temple and pull the trigger.  You're playing the ultimate game of chance, if you win you live, if you lose you die. The odds are 6 to 1, not bad in Vegas, but are you willing to bet your life or your good health on it? Remember, in a game of chance, the odds favor the house. Why am I going on like this? It's simple, I have family and friends who are rationalizing their protection against COVID, they're thinking that with such a small fraction of the community getting sick that I

How often do we learn something awful, clam up, and ignore it, hoping it will go away.  It never does, it just gets worse and our silence becomes its enabler.  Life is like that, we don't want to get involved. We have enough to worry about and ignorance, after all, is bliss. Wrong, ignorance is acceptance. The easy analogy is governance. We sit in a management meeting or a board of directors where we become aware of something nefarious and keep silent for fear of being disloyal.  To speak up takes courage and courage has consequences. When a whistleblower comes forward they are vilified, they become the victim of power and power corrupts. We've seen this in Washington for years, management teams being selected for their weakness rather than their strength. Weakness breeds indecision and silence, strength breeds courage. A new administration always starts with a ray of hope that the management team, aka the cabinet, will be outspoken and advise and consent with courage, not sile

A drone is often preferred for missions that are too “dull, dirty, or dangerous” for manned aircraft.” There are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in human history, an estimated 27 million in bondage across the globe. Men, women, and children being exploited for manual and sexual labor against their will. PROLOGUE Her name was Casita. She was eighteen, looked fourteen, and thought like twenty-two. One of nine children from El Chorillo, a poverty-stricken barrio on the outskirts of Panama City. Her brother, Javier, had been snatched from the streets six months earlier. He was nine years old and beautiful. Casita completed high school at the top of her class, spoke fluent English and Spanish with an advanced degree from the streets of El Chorillo. There she was known as  jefe Mujer, (boss woman). In the developed world she would be a CEO, respected by her peers, and feared by her competitors. Interpol, the world’s largest international police organization, was recruit

MEMORIES~1963 A dragon lives forever but not so little boys Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more And puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar In the 60's we all assumed Puff The Magic Dragon was a folk song about smoking pot. The truth is that the writers, Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow, will tell you it's a fantasy based on a poem about fading into old age. If you were alive in the early '60s, as I was, you may look back on Puff with nostalgia and a different take on life. Puff was the imaginary friend, a Dragon, of a little boy named Jackie Paper. The lyrics explain that Jackie's life was temporary and that Puff lost his roar when Jackie was gone. I tell my children and their spouses that they better live in the present and enjoy their children every waking moment, they'll be gone in the blink of an eye. Play with them, read to them, take them places, make them laugh, hug them when

                            FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT We're frightened because of COVID and the economy, fair enough, but consider history. The Great Depression and the 2nd World War didn't cause more death than the pandemic, they caused more fear. The difference is, in the 1930s and '40s we had a leader that told us in a calm, reassuring voice that "we had nothing to fear but fear itself. " Fear is a crippling emotion, it causes indecision and panic during times of peril when what we need is leadership that reassures us. Remember when your kids woke up in the middle of the night with nightmares, they were scared to death. What did you do, you held them in your arms and whispered calmly that it was alright, they were safe and had nothing to fear. FDR was the nation's parent he knew that we needed reassurance that we needed that calm, strong voice leading us through a crisis. I honestly believe Joe Biden is that voice and that with his folksy, experienced demeanor a

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." Charles Dickens Paris in the 18th Century was in turmoil, it was the reign of terror, the French revolution was raging the atmosphere was chaotic. Washington, DC in the 21st Century is in turmoil, the pandemic is raging and the atmosphere is chaotic. Is this an analogy?  Maybe, but we need to fill in a few gaps.  Paris in 1789 was suffering from unemployment, hunger, and p