No Kings Day Protest Marches in America

We strongly support all the No Kings Day Protest Marches in the United States. Today, 3/28/2026, millions will walk and talk about how we can be become a better Nation. We respect and admire these loyal real Americans.

The current MAGA Republican crumbly Krew and the incompetent and sick demented pedophile thief President Tumper Dum Dum must be immediately removed. Return to our Real and Honorable American Ways.

We both worked until age 70, paid taxes and Social Security for 54 years, and I served in the US Air Force for four years, and we both voted Democratic in every election since 1967.

More Democrats and Independents need 1) Vote in every election, and 2) root out their unconscious mistreatment of women, minorities, gays, the sick, the impoverished, and the downtrodden. We want peace, we want DEI, we want a good economy, we want a better future for our grandchildren, we want a Real Respected America.

Stop the billionaire class from dominating American lives in the national media, and in their bribery and illegal manipulations of laws to further their outrageous indifferent Greed!

We want the USA Department of Defense to Return. We want our troops brought home. We want Veterans benefits restored and improved.

Peace, Sisters and Brothers, Love Not War

No Kings Day

 I support the No Kings Day Protest Demonstrations
 Around the United States.

I object to the dictatorial manner of our current incompetent President.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.  2,043 military personnel and civilians were killed. and 1, 178 persons were injured. This event is just real history for me.

Remembrance Day

Attack on Pearl Harbor

Today I watched numerous films, made in the 1940's, about World War II in the Pacific.  Turner Classic Movies featured a number of classic films about the War. 

On September 11, 2001, Islamic Terrorist's attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. nearly 3,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed; and thousands more injured.  I remember this event vividly.

Very sad days in the history of America. 

U.S. Navy Arizona RIP

Positive Psychology and Secular Ethics: Good Reads

Lately, I have been reading for many hours each day as I recover and heal my knee from my fall last Sunday (10 Sep 2023).  Here are some of the better books I have read:

The Twelve Monotasks: Do One Thing at a Time, Do Everything Better.  By Thatcher Wine. Little Brown Spark, 2021, index, notes, 263 pages.  VSCL, Hardbound + FVRLibrary.

If you want good ideas, tips, techniques, exercises, and methods for enabling yourself to focus, concentrate, and fully engage yourself in specific tasks in your daily life then read: "The Twelve Monotasks: Do One Thing at a Time, Do Everything Better" by Thatcher Wine, 2021. He gives specific recommendations for "monotasking" in the areas of reading, walking, listening, sleeping, eating, travel, learning, teaching, playing, seeing, creating, and thinking. A fine book in positive psychology!

Secular Faith: How Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics.  By Mark A. Smith.  University of Chicago Press, 2015, index, notes, 287 pages. FVRLibrary.

A sociological and historical study about how the secular society in America has moved away from traditional religious anti-progressive and oppressive values regarding slavery, divorce, homosexuality, abortion, and women's rights.  A very good analysis and careful research into how the Christian religion supported slavery, rejected divorce, persecuted homosexuals, rejected birth control, and treated women unfairly and denied women rights; and how secular compromises changed our views and laws regarding these issues and practices in American society over the past three centuries. A respect for individual liberties, rights, and freedom are more popular in American secular culture in 2023. For example, despite the Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, and fundamentalist "family values" agendas in the ongoing Culture Wars; all States now have "no-fault" divorce options, and these religious groups these days place a low priority on trying to restrict or make divorce illegal or persecute divorcees, as they did in the past.

The Existentialist's Survival Guide;  How to Live Authentically in an Inauthentic Age. By Gordon Marino. Harper One, 2018, bibliography, notes, 260 pages. FVRLibrary.

A philosopher and librarian and boxer digs deeply into real life issues such as anxiety, depression, despair, death, authenticity, faith, morality, and love.  Strong on Kierkegaard and similar authors. Hope, courage, and honesty but little emphasis of facile happiness. Existentialism has a gloomy demeanor, and life can be very gloomy.

Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. By Jean-Paul Sartre.  Translated by Sarah Richmond.  Washington Square Press, 1943, 2018, bibliography, index, 853 pages.  VSCL, Paperback. 

This complicated, obtuse, lengthy, difficult, and noted book will take me four months to read and study.  I have read a number of essays and fictional books by Sartre, and studied him in college in 1964, but have never challenged myself to study his magnum opus until 2023.  I'm not sure if I am up to understanding his complex views in my old age, but I will try. 

Lewis and Clark History

We went to Powell's Bookstore on Monday of this week.  I purchased books on travel in the Columbia River Gorge, northwest coast, and Lewis and Clark.

When Federal employees are back to work, very soon I hope, we plan to visit Fort Clatsop, where the Lewis and Clark Expedition spent the winter of 1805-1806, near the current city of Astoria, Oregon.

Shame on Democrats, Republicans and the President in 2019 for "shutting down" our federal government services.  Compromise, give in, move on, stop arguing.

I am now reading two books about United States history during the period from 1800-1810.  Jefferson was President.  The Louisana Purchase was finalized in 1803.  Captain Lewis Meriwether and Captain William Clark led the Corps of Discovery expedition from Washington to the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River, and back, from 1803 to 1806.  They where the first American expedition to explore uncharted territory up the Missouri River from St. Louis and all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  

A few decades after 1805, people were moving into the area of the Willamette Valley and to take advantage of the Columbia River commerce opportunities.  The town of Astoria, Oregon, was founded in 1811; Portland, Oregon, emerged as a city from 1843 to 1851; and Vancouver, Washington, a suburb north of Portland, where I live now, grew from a fur trading post in 1825 to an incorporated city in 1857.  

In 1870, the population of Vancouver was 1,722; Portland, 8,293; and Astoria, 639.  In 1890, Vancouver had a population of 3,545, Portland, 45,385; and Astoria, 6,184.  In 2019, the population of Portland is about 647,000; Vancouver is 175,000; and Astoria, 9,862.  

The Portland (Vancouver and Hillsboro) Metropolitan StatisticalArea (MSA), the 23rd largest in the United States, has a population of 2,226,009 (2010 Census). Of them, 1,789,580 live in Oregon (46.7% of the state's population) while the remaining 436,429 live in Washington (6.7% of state's population).

California became a U.S. State in 1850; Oregon in 1859; Washington in 1889; and Idaho in 1890.    


Undaunted Courage:  Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West.  By Stephen E. Ambrose.  Simon and Schuster, Touchstone, 1996.  521 pages.  Paperbound book.


The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery.  The Abridgment of the Definitive Nebraska Edition.  Edited with an introduction by Gary E. Moulton.  Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2003.  EBook.

I need to investigate using the Clark County Library System ebook options.

Travel in the Northwest
Bibliography, Notes, Links, Information, History, Nature
Washington, Oregon, Northern California, British Columbia
Prepared by Michael P. Garofalo