Updates to this page: This page will get updated as I find the time and motivation. If you've got a favorite post you'd like to see included here, email me at jim@stonekettle.com and let me know.
A note about searching the site: If you're looking for a specific post, something you've read in the past but only remember a few key words from or maybe just the subject, you can perform a basic search using the Blogger search function in the upper left-hand corner of the main page. However, blogger search results are somewhat hit and miss. A better option is to use Google. Because this is a Google indexed blog, you'll get much better results if you do your search from Google. Preface your search with "Stonekettle Station" followed by whatever key words or subjects you're looking for. If I'm searching my own site, especially for older posts, that's what I do.
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Requiem for a life less ordinary. I wrote this two days after my father died. I didn't want a eulogy, I wanted you to know who he was, to experience a small piece of the extraordinary life he led and why I turned out the way I did.
Reason: You cannot reason with willfully unreasonable people. This has become my guide star. It's also why I carry a thick tip black Sharpie marker with me wherever I go - and why you might want to think twice about sitting down next to me.
Where do you get your goofy ideas? Neither my beliefs nor my politics have changed over the last thirty years, yet somehow I went from being a patriot to an enemy of America. Imagine my dismay: Everybody's So Different, I Haven't Changed. If you want to know who I am and why I think the way I do, start here. As a follow-up, I keep running into people I used to know, inevitably they express disappointment that I'm not the person they expected me to be. That's okay, they're not who I thought they were either: The People We Were, The People We Are. Of all the essays I've written, these two seem to resonate with the largest number of people, on both sides of the political aisle.
The America posts: Part 1 went viral and has been read now by nearly two million people. It was linked to over 10,000 times from Facebook, and nearly that many times from Twitter. A small fraction of readers hated it and called me everything from a communist bastard to a Bradley Manning look alike (Yeah, I don't get that one either, given my position on Pvt Manning), but all in all the post seemed to have struck a chord with a very large number of people and inspired conversations across the web.
Part 1, America: You Keep Using That Word...
Part 2, America: Explained
Part 3, America: Land That I Love
The Gun Posts: Every time I write one of these, I hope it's the last. But it never is, there's always another massacre. Always.
The Seven Stages of Gun Violence
The Bang Bang Crazy Series:
Part 1, What we need, see, are more guns, big fucking guns
Part 2, Gun violence isn't the exception in America, it's who we are
Part 3, Sandy Hook, the NRA, and a gun in every school
Part 4, More dead kids and why we have laws
Part 5, Gun control and a polite society
Part 6, The Christopher Donner rampage, they needed killin'
Part 7, Still more dead kids and let's print our own guns!
Part 8, Let's try blaming the victim, shall we?
Part 9, Armed soldiers on post, sure, nothing to go wrong there.
Part 10. Big Damned Heroes!
Part 11. Two in the Bush
Part 12, Excuses
Part 13, Arm the Teachers
Part 14, The cowardice of Responsibility.
What do we do about it? How do we change our culture of gun violence? Bang Bang Sanity
Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, and Drones, a number of folks have made some very, very wrong assumptions about where I stand on the subject of Wikileaks and Army Specialist Manning. Here's what I actually think:
False Heroes and Whistleblowers
Information Just Wants To Be Free
Here's the Snowden essay:
Essential Liberty in a post-911 world
And here's how I feel about the use of drones and targeted killing:
Consequences
Into the Valley of Death: Some thoughts regarding the tragic loss of US Navy SEALs in Afghanistan and why armchair generals and Sunday morning quarterbacks piss me right off.
Pearl Harbor: Remembering December 7th. Of all the things I've written, this is my favorite. This is the story I used to tell to new Navy Chiefs, so they would know who they were.
The Liberalism Post: For some reason the posts inspired by bumper stickers seem to resonate with readers. The following article also went viral and I still continue to get email from people about it, both those that agree and those that think I'm a traitor to America. Sigh. Liberalism, Conservatism, and Insanity
Chicken Heads and Cultures Wars: In North Pole, Alaska, filthy immigrants slaughter chickens and steal their heads all because they want to legalize bullfighting in America. Stealing Our Culture, That's What They're Doing!The United States of Awesome! What if the Constitution was written today?
On the 40th Anniversary of the 1st Moon landing, One Small Step, A Bittersweet Anniversary. Would that we Americans were the people we once were.
Ronald Reagan: I understand why people revere this guy, I do. But they're wrong. He was a reasonably decent president, but his face sure as hell doesn't belong on Mt Rushmore: The Deification of Ronald Reagan
The Palmer Alaska Post Office and why I hate them so very, very much.
Thanksgiving and Revisionism: Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Socialist.
Thanksgiving and Sarah Palin: Turkey Day!
John Wayne: Dial One for English
Hunter S. Stonekettle visits George Bush and Sarah Palin:
Where The Caribou Barbies Roam
Fear And Loathing At An Undisclosed Location
Funny Stories About Cats:
A Conversation With ShopKat
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Cat
Manly Blogging Thursday
Death From the Sky, Part I
Death From the Sky, Part II
Amusing Lists of Things That Piss Me Off:
The Coffee Shop
Auto Repair
WiFi in the Sky
President's Day
Living in the Future
The Complete List of things that Chap My Ass
