We live in the world of make-believe, a world controlled by ciphers such as Wall Street, Corporate America, the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon. These ciphers enjoy the enthusiastic support of the media, the academy, and the shamans to whom we entrust the care of body, mind, and soul. They reside in cipherspace, a euphemism for what French writer Albert Camus called the absurd. {Pictured is a dog at the Famine Memorial in Dublin, by Inf ...

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We live in the world of make-believe, a world controlled by ciphers such as Wall Street, Corporate America, the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon. These ciphers enjoy the enthusiastic support of the media, the academy, and the shamans to whom we entrust the care of body, mind, and soul. They reside in cipherspace, a euphemism for what French writer Albert Camus called the absurd. {Pictured is a dog at the Famine Memorial in Dublin, by Infomatique (2008) at Flickr Commons.}

Authors Bio:
I have a law degree (Stanford, 66') but have never practiced. Instead, from 1967 through 1977, I tried to contribute to the revolution in America. As unsuccessful as everyone else over that decade, in 1978 I went to work for the U.S. Forest Service in San Francisco as a Clerk-Typist, GS-4. I was active in the USFS's union for several years, including a brief stint as editor of The Forest Service Monitor, the nationwide voice of the Forest Service in the National Federation of Federal Employees. Howsoever, I now believe my most important contribution while editor of the F.S.M. was bringing to the attention of F.S. employees the fact that the Black-Footed Ferret was not extinct; one had been found in 1980 on a national forest in the Colorado. In 2001 I retired from the USFS after attaining the age of 60 with 23 years of service. Stanford University was evidently unimpressed with my efforts to make USFS investigative reports of tort claim incidents available to tort claimants (ie, "the public"), alleging the negligence of a F.S. employee acting in the scope of his/her duties caused their damages, under the Freedom of Information Act. Oh well. What'cha gonna do?