Mad boy king decompensation and the astrological omens of a loser — If you’ve been Trump-watching lately in this election end-game, you might have noticed he seems even more reckless, aggressive and vengeful than usual. It’s like a boxer in the ring knowing the opponent has the better moves, but flailing to simply not go down. At this point, a punch-drunk fighter…

Hint: It’s a Dopamine High. I’ve been wrestling with discomfort lately — mostly a kind of WTF fright about the alarming US political scene. It’s gotten under my skin in a way that reminds me of the post 9–11 anthrax scare, where just opening my Washington DC-area mailbox caused my…

US Foreign Policy: “Knocking Out Tough Hombres” in Mexico — I hate to sound like I am slamming John Wayne by even putting the departed actor in the same headline as Donald Trump. Because despite some of the cartoonish cowboy roles Wayne played, he had some depth of soul, while Trump appears to be a cartoon figure inside and out. …

I’ve given up being Zen about Donald Trump. The truth matters. — A refrain has been stuck on repeat in my head for the first week of the new US Presidency: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” These words were spoken by president John F. Kennedy (and attributed to Irish statesman Edmund…

It’s that time again, when everyone gets on the fresh-start bandwagon with ambitious 2016 resolutions for self improvement. Have you noticed that most often these stated resolutions end up as wishful thinking instead of actual outcomes? And even if you do manage to pull of a few of your resolutions…