'Lone Gunman': Suspicious Similarities, Norwegian, Australian, American Shooters
Douglas Herman
2012-12-17 09:24
Column by Douglas Herman.
Exclusive to STR
“We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.” ~ Katherine Graham, Publisher of the Washington...
Why Earth Is ET's Top Rated Reality Show
Douglas Herman
2012-12-04 08:42
Column by Douglas Herman.
Exclusive to STR
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” ~ William Shakespeare
“To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.” ~ Friedrich...
Star-Crossed Super Ships: Titanic, Enterprise, America
Douglas Herman
2012-03-23 00:00
Column by Douglas Herman.
Exclusive to STR
The whole world looked different one hundred years ago.
In 1912, the automobile and the airplane were curiosities. England enjoyed an enormous empire in 1912, served by freighters, tankers, liners and warships. As immigration flooded across the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of those ships ferried passengers across to America. Shipyards launched bigger...
All My Heroes Died Broke, Broken, Not Beaten
Douglas Herman
2012-03-08 01:00
Column by Douglas Herman.
Exclusive to STR
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure that it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
Recently I...
Black Swans vs. Canary in the Coal Mine
Douglas Herman
2012-02-27 01:00
Column by Doug Herman.
Exclusive to STR
Not all Black Swans are created equally.
Orchestrated human events are rarely Black Swan events. No matter how surprising to the masses, sudden and spectacular world events are rarely random, or so called Black Swans. Most Black Swans are human creations, created by and for the power elites. Pearl Harbor (1941), followed by the...
They Stole His Money, Her Money & Mine Too
Douglas Herman
2012-01-24 01:00
Column by Doug Herman.
Exclusive to STR
Just before the holidays, I walked into my local Wells Fargo bank to cash a small birthday check one of my sisters gave to me. Imagine my surprise when the teller informed me my small savings account was closed. I told her she was mistaken, and asked her to please check again; I knew I had about $800 in the account and I never use the ATM and don...
Adventures in Silver and Gold, Part 1: Seeking Precious Metal in The Melting Pot of Life
Douglas Herman
2011-04-25 03:00
Column by Douglas Herman.
Exclusive to STR
Metal, heavy metal is much in the news these days. While heavy radioactive metals are melting down in Japan, the twin precious metals of gold and silver are melting upwards. We are always surrounded by precious metal. It is inside us. Sometimes we sacrifice our more precious mettle inside of us to sweat and sacrifice and finally extract the less valuable...
A Naturalist Looks at Avatar
Douglas Herman
2010-01-12 04:00
Exclusive to STR
Maybe you’ve seen the first billion dollar movie. Maybe you saw it in 3-D, at an IMAX theater, with Dolby Surround Sound. Maybe you saw that movie and wondered what James Cameron was trying to say, if anything, and whether it was just another popcorn matinee movie with little substance behind the special effects.
Avatar might be one of those movies discussed in...
Does the American Empire Deserve to Die?
Douglas Herman
2009-11-01 17:00
Exclusive to STR
November 2, 2009
I’m halfway through a reflective book written by an old curmudgeon. Part patriot, part historian, all gadfly, Gore Vidal wrote Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia in 2004, just before the upcoming national elections. Almost a time capsule coupled with dire prophecy, the book is a sober,...
Once I Was Your Candy Colored Dream Girl
Douglas Herman
2009-01-12 17:00
Exclusive to STR
I was once the dazzling dream girl of a hundred million beating hearts. All aglow and glittering, I was the sweet little roadster desired by a restless middle class on the move and craving motion. I was the gleaming Buick, Ford or Chevy chariot that blazed across the landscape. I was the gaudy, popsicle-colored Chrysler, Caddy, Pontiac or De Soto that made grown men smile with...
JFK and Obama--Profiles in Courage and Cowardice
Douglas Herman
2008-12-21 17:00
I became an adult sometime in June, 1968. I was 18 and had just graduated from high school. Upon turning 18, the state demanded I register for the draft. The Vietnam War was more than five years old and LBJ demanded more troops for Southeast Asia. Like millions of other young, American men, I was cannon fodder for an enormous, immoral and wasteful foreign folly.
Three prominent US leaders...
Seeing the Maverick$ and Magician$ from Monticello
Douglas Herman
2008-10-09 16:00
The views from Monticello are spectacular. Thomas Jefferson called one panoramic vista his 'sea view.' I suppose if Jefferson were alive today he would view the ongoing banking scandal with extreme disgust bordering on an outright declaration of war. Seems Thomas Jefferson himself suffered similar swindles first hand. I visited Monticello while in Virginia recently. I toured the house and...
When Weather Changes History in 21st Century America
Douglas Herman
2008-09-28 16:00
Sarah Palin named her daughter after Bristol Bay. More than a thousand commercial fishing boats gather in Bristol Bay, Alaska every summer to harvest the richest source of wild salmon on earth. Thanks to the skillful management of the resource by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, enough salmon escape upstream every year to allow tens of millions to return the following years. Bristol Bay...
When Weather Changes History in 21st Century America
Douglas Herman
2008-09-12 16:00
Exclusive to STR
September 13, 2008
When weather changes world history, humans scramble like frightened ants. Consider the storm that sunk and scattered the Spanish Armada. Or the bitter cold and snowstorms that ravaged the ill-prepared German Army at Stalingrad. Or the series of powerful hurricanes that devastated the southeastern United States these last few years.
Shaft the Navy, Stiff the Nation, Start a War?
Douglas Herman
2008-09-01 16:00
Dear Senator McCain, (perhaps soon to be Hail-To-The-Chief): I write this letter as a fellow US veteran and fellow Arizonan.
With only a few days to go until the big top, I imagine you are giddy with excitement. Like a kid in a candy store with an insatiable craving for sugar.
From where I sit, this contest could go either way. Not that I have a pony in this race, so to speak, but I have a vested...
Who Threatens You Most: The President, Congress, Fed--Or Iran?
Douglas Herman
2008-07-21 16:00
Some day in the not-too-distant future, someone will pen a book called Who Wrecked America ? If the book is honest, fingers will be pointed at the crooks and liars in Washington DC and Wall Street, at lobbyists (pimps) and Congressmen (whores), at bankers and war toy makers, at AIPAC and PNAC, at presidents, executives and generals.
Doubtful that anyone will conclude that Iran had much to do with...
Castaway in Hollywood
Douglas Herman
2008-06-16 16:00
Exclusive to STR
June 17, 2008
'We all live in a little Village . . . . Your village may be different from other people's villages but we are all prisoners.' ~ Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner) I was sitting on a gold mine. Three top movie scripts and six, really good Reality TV shows, plus one quirky, fictional crime novel that, ironically, came true two years later, a rarity among crime novels...
Faces of Truth vs. Faces of Liars
Douglas Herman
2008-06-01 16:00
June 2, 2008
'At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves.' ~ George Orwell
Perhaps you heard that Norman Finkelstein got arrested. The former professor of disgraced DePaul University traveled to Israel , where authorities without any real authority had him arrested, interrogated and then deported.
The Means and Methods of a Modern Thoreau
Douglas Herman
2008-05-13 16:00
May 14, 2008
The other day I was talking with my dear friend Annie about Thoreau. We were discussing what it means to be a success in America . Imagine, I said, what his fellow townsfolk must have thought, when they read how Thoreau described himself.
'For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it...
Smarter Than a Rothschild or a British Prime Minister?
Douglas Herman
2008-03-19 17:00
March 20, 2008
"Financially, the US is not an independent country." ~ Paul Craig Roberts
Gold surpassed $1000 on Friday, March 14, to the collective silence of the financial advisors and investment columnists of the mainstream US media. When the economic gurus of the MSM missed the predictable, seven year rise of precious metals, their ignorance was obvious.
What Do You Need to Survive?
Douglas Herman
2008-02-24 17:00
February 25, 2008
'Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.' ~ Cervantes
Ask yourself: what do you personally need to survive in case of an economic meltdown, in case of sudden hyperinflation, a global resource blockade, a sudden declaration of martial law--or a simple nuclear exchange resulting in national panic?
The Controlled Demolition of the American Republic
Douglas Herman
2007-03-20 17:00
March 21, 2007
'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' ~ Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke, an Englishman of Irish birth, anarchist by inclination, is considered the father of Anglo-American conservatism (a defunct, nearly extinct sect) and also one of the earliest anarchist thinkers and supporter of the American revolution. Few such men exist today in Anglo-...
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