Over the past several months, I have been feeling everything from sad to angry, due to all the nastiness of the recent US Presidential election, its outcome, the people Trump has nominated for his cabinet and his advisors, the things Trump says and Tweets, and in the past few days since he actually took office, the executive orders he has already started issuing.

On February 11th, 2008, over 1000 people from over 70 countries, all of whom now live in the state of Washington, visited Olympia (our state capitol) for the second annual Refugee and Immigrant Legislative Day. I decided to take a day off work and attend. Here are some observations from the day:

I finally finished reading Chalmers Johnson's book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, which prompted me to think about the differences between the United States that our founding fathers envisioned, and wrote into the Constitution, and the United States we are living in today. Here are some thoughts.

I've become increasingly troubled by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) lately, and I have come to think that it is a major threat to democracy in the United States. Here are some thoughts. Note that the activities described below have spanned the entire existence of the CIA, and have not been limited to the direction of one President or one political party.