http://www.christopherketcham.com A Web Archive for the work and writings of Christopher Ketcham (copyright © Christopher Ketcham, all rights reserved) Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:00:24 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I often correspond with a long-time Washington DC operator named Leigh Ratiner, who spent 40 years in government, serving under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Reagan, with cabinet-level posts in the Defense Department, under the Secretary of the Interior, in the Department of Energy, and in the State Department. ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=135 [Note to readers: I wrote this for CounterPunch back in May 2009, but was reminded by a friend to re-post it, as the Obama administration descends continuously into the nightmare...] My good friend Travis, from Moab, Utah, got it into his heat-scarred head that Obama, following the historic election, would soon ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=134 My father, who just turned 70, called from the mountains the other day.  He’d been watching television again, always a bad sign.  “What the hell is this Max Jackoff business?” “Dad, what are you talking about?” “It’s all in the news.  Never heard of him before.  Some sort of man-boy.  Singer.  Runs ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=130 In a society where 2.3 million people are serving time in prison -- more than any other country in the world -- and many of them are innocent or convicted of harmless drug possession charges, it's no surprise when you hear the story of Doreen Giuliano's son, John Giuca, who ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=122 The good news for economy – I use the word in its old, perhaps archaic, sense – keeps on coming, but we are told the current “economic” crisis is a tragedy for the nation’s living standards. Far from it. First of all, let’s define economy. What we ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=121 An Open Letter to Congress Dear Sirs/Madams: You in the corporate execugarchy in this country have forgotten the shape and name of fear – and yes I mean you, dear congressmen, whose work has gone hand in hand with big money for too long, running amok in the sea lanes of American ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=120 So the tax-payer hand-out will “save” Wall Street from its own predations. Any reasonable man, of course, would wish the pig-fuckers to fry in their own feces. Let the free market carry out their corpses to the gutter. And mine too, perhaps, for as a magazine writer I depend on ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=119 My most recent article in Harper's -- find it here -- chronicles the several weeks I spent in May 2007 wandering around with the Yellowstone buffalo herd, the last free-roaming unfenced genetically pure herd in the world. In what amounts to the usual sad and sorry spectacle called ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=115 Regarding the abortion debate, I tend to think that life starts when a child develops irony. The hope of the human race is that we will learn to disagree without believing in anything. Only brothers could hate each other the way Arabs and Jews do. The frugal man in a time of prosperity ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=111 Money has proved the most dangerous of modern man’s hallucinogens. -Lewis Mumford Be in nothing so moderate as in love of man. - Robinson Jeffers, from “Shine, Perishing Republic!” Pack Creek Ranch, Moab, Utah Rats, like human beings, need enough space to stretch and relax and breath free. Consider a study that researcher ... http://www.christopherketcham.com/?p=109