I think, therefore I am

I think, and I expect others to do the same. I have some control over the first part of that statement, but I am helpless in advancing, and am continually disappointed in the second. Still, I talk and I write, frustrating most of us, I suppose.

Why would I bother to post on my website a paean to apple pie, motherhood, patriotism, or the obvious virtues of not murdering your family, friends and neighbors? I post what neither I nor my readers would expect to see elsewhere. My enthusiasms are rarely directed toward the banal, and instead look for the challenging and the new.

If I take the effort to espress myself I try hard to avoid the obvious, or to add my thoughts to the chorus of a majority, whether the subject is opera, yiddish culture, General Motors, the pope or patriotism.

I don't feel inspired, and should not be compelled or required, to first demonstrate my credentials as a right-thinking human being or to declaim the obvious in order then to address my subject, with what I hope would be a fresh perspecive, provocative in the best sense.

I will take not a loyalty oath and I will subscribe to no cathechism. I leave such silly but dangerous stuff to small frightened souls, and hope they will keep them away from decent folk.