Mark Paxson's Blog

I’ve been through some stuff over the last six years. A couple of months before COVID hit, my mom had a health crisis that put her in the hospital a couple of times and with a prescription for prednisone. That dastardly drug may have kept inflammation at bay but it destroyed my mom and left […]

My latest piece over on Substack: I don’t know if it’s Marx or Alinsky, or maybe George Orwell in 1984, but there was somebody who wrote something about if the powerful lie enough people will no longer know what to believe and they will follow the charlatans and grifters who appeal to their basest instincts. […]

My dad was born and grew up in Chicago. His parents both worked as seamstresses and he spent his childhood as a proverbial latchkey kid. After he turned 18, he left home for the Air Force, where he stayed for 20 years. He navigated B-52s, which included flying alerts (basically, flying around with nuclear bombs […]

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment states: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding Trump’s efforts to restrict what seems to be a pretty clear statement that […]

I have no idea what to title this post. If you don’t want to be depressed by the state of things in this country, you can always skip this post. I grow ever more concerned that we have reached a point of no return. That as a society, a culture, and a system of government, […]

We spent the last six days in San Diego, visiting our son and his girlfriend. First note is this … the horror of long waits at security is a complete myth. Not just at the airports we flew in and out of, but almost everywhere around the country. There are really only 2-3 airports that […]

This is one of those songs that intrigues me. There are so many layers to this song, I desperately want to know how a musician puts something like this together. An intro, complete with a weeping violin. A middle that seems like a party and leads into a portion during which the pace of the […]

February 28 marks the sixth anniversary of my “retirement.” That’s in quotes because after 11 months of blissful peace, I went back to work part-time. I knew I would need to do something to supplement my pension, so I shouldn’t be disappointed at the continued work. But I am. I simply don’t want to do […]

There was a time when I watched a lot of the Olympics. Both Summer and Winter. Not so much anymore. I’m tired of the patriotic, rah rah, jingoistic cheering for the home team that pervades the coverage. Let me be clear. I don’t hate America. I don’t want to live in another country. I want […]