Blogs
Ode to New Year 2025
Happy New Year, the anchor roared. Auld Lang Syne assaulted my ears. The ball dropped once again, accompanied by plentiful hugs and kisses. Young people smiling and looking skyward commemorated from every angle. Announcers resumed their commentary – the coming year’s promise. I took a celebratory sip of my annual bottle of beer, now warm and flat. My eyes fixed on an overflowing bin of empty cans and bottles …beside a happy couple at a corner … just starting their lives. Bombast went on.
I walked to retrieve a basket of clean laundry then slowly folded piece after piece. Each quietly spoke measures of years past. A pillowcase that once cradled mom’s head. A shirt dad loved to wear. Mother, Father, Sister and Brother – now only memories. Damn booze! An elbow knocked the basket to the floor.Folded laundry once again a pile. Hands covered my face before I jumped up and dumped the rest of that beer.Not once more … will I pollute my alertness I promised yet again.
The Times Square crowd slowly dispersed. Alone, the overfull can of empties stared back at me.A page turned.
Sammy’s stubby face screamed at me from down the long, narrow hall that day in 1964. Moments later he was yanking the bottom of my white tee-shirt. Then he pulled me from the ladder and pushed me down the box filled hall at my afterschool job – running stock at the mall’s shoe store. I could see it before we got to the door. Incredible! A mile-wide smile covered Sammy’s face. Sitting smack at the center of the four walkways into the mall –a bright red Mustang two door convertible, snow white interior glowing. We ogled it until assistant manager Jim came out to tell us to get back to work. A truly stunning moment. I thought of nothing else for the rest of that afternoon, not even sweet Sal. Ford beat Chevy with the first of the new muscle cars.
I wiped my cheeks then looked at the backs of old hands. Hundreds of stories – ups and downs – hidden in dark spots and scars. It’d been a good ride. Life’s synopsis is assembled as we make the passage.Sometimes a gallop, others a trot, it’s exciting then miserable.This one is uniquely mine.
“Happy New Year, Ke-mo sah-bee,”I shouted on the way the bedroom.
*****
Letter to The SLO Tribune Editor 01 20 26
I celebrated Martin Luther King’s birthday this month by reading his, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” written in 1963. Near the beginning he writes, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Surely the inexcusable treatment if Black Americans in the southern states was on his mind. I wonder what he would think of the treatment of brown-skinned Americans in the U.S. in 2026.
King goes on to say, “We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers.”
What about brown-skinned Americans that must endure mental and physical brutality at the hands of Trump’s special police, citizen or not? Immigrants do the jobs white Americans don’t want for a chance at a better life.
Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney openly defied Trump’s Greenland plans and his international brutality that is akin to what is happening in the U.S. at Davos, while inviting NATO members to join Canada.
Keep demonstrating folks. Trump’s plans are falling apart everywhere. Must we wait for a looming terrible ending?Letter to the?
SLO Tribune Editor 10 29 25
Well, here we are! The President is building his obscene ballroom. The East Wing is gone. No more will there be Christmas student tours with children oohing and aahing at the seasonal beauty they will never forget. Forget those thousands of Americans that every year walked there to visit the most important building in America – The White House.
Let’s make Argentina great again. Screw American farmers! And, if you don’t have gobs of money, there’s no chance you’ll ever see Trump’s House Ballroom … in what was once Our House.
What has happened to us folks? What happened to promises of transparency? Where has all the money gone? It’s become clear to me the only things our president is interested in is rewarding his wealthy friends and hiding eyesores.
What about the other 340-millions of us? What about healthcare and food for the millions that aren’t wealthy? Particularly, brown-skinned friends of mine who carefully watch each step for masked vigilantes.
I can’t imagine anyone voting for MAGA congresspeople that give this president a free pass to do whatever he wants. If I’m ever allowed to vote again, I’m sure he’ll lose. This is just unbelievable, and I’m scared shitless.
Letter sent to the NY Times Editor 12 30 25
A bold, blunt and truthful young man I met laid out the dread and sorrow crushing a large group of fellow Americans. Deep thoughts that followed went to my father’s honorable but bitter service during WW II and early American’s suffering persistence as they battled for liberty from British authoritarianism. I became convinced I must battle in my own small way. Important to this story – this young man was brown-skinned, eloquent and seventeen years old. He chose to forego college to devote himself to helping his people. I’m white-skinned and nearly eighty.
He presented me a vital new use for my remaining energy. Examples of the blood on his hands from helping others lucidly explained fear in the Hispanic community. Most don’t go out except to work. No outdoor recreation for kids. Breadwinners disappear leaving wives and children, often lawful permanent residents and citizens, without support. White Americans don’t get it. It's time for this madness to cease. Why must we roundup people that do the work most Americans won’t? They just want an opportunity for a better life like our forefathers. Each of us needs to do what we can to turn this around and truly make America great again.
Letter to the SLO Tribune Letter 03 26 25
My, my, I watched the President’s harangue last night. In a state of shock (a gross understatement) since he took office and began to fire off ridiculous Executive Orders and ignore Court Orders; I wasn’t hopeful. What I witnessed was a miserable used car salesman tie a big red bow on an old clunker (Tariffs) and call it America’s savior. No doubt it will make us millions! Unsurprisingly, he failed to mention the dents and check engine lights (problems like inflation, the rich vs. poor, and where the money will come from and go).
In a former life I led new product projects for a multinational company. To turn projects into products, I had to work with scientists and business units from many disciplines. Our President’s approach to reshaping the government – shaking all the pieces and a bag and throwing them on the floor, then picking up the ones he wants – never works. It’s failed time and again. The only way to consistently achieve a good endpoint is hard. Bring all the disciplines together as a team and work toward an agreed outcome, as each issue arises. No one gets their way. It’s consensus.
Congratulations! You voted for him.
UCLA Defunding
Mr. President:
Re: UCLA
I will be as kind as possible in this message because of your position. That may be difficult. As a former UCLA student, I take great offense at your corrupt demand of $1 B from the school where I received a fine education and a Ph.D. in 1972. Yes, I am senior to you. Perhaps you should pay attention. And don't bother to send me one of those pathetic follow up letters your staff write.I came from a family that couldn't afford to send me to such a fine school as UCLA. The only reason for my success in attending and graduating there was Federal support by grants like those you are illegally blocking to extort money from the university.
While there, I worked for a professor, no he probably wasn't a liberal, who won The Nobel Prize for Chemistry fifteen years after I graduated. I also later rose to lead R&D for a global company’s North American business.
You know, it is impossible to express my distaste for you without being profane, so I'll just try to tell everyone I know this story.
Sincerely, Michael Broadhurst
This message was sent to the White House website on 8/17/25. Please join me with your letters to the President