About

I grew up in Texas and, despite doing law, politics and trade associations in Washington DC for the last 20 years, I still believe in sincerity. As we are all assuredly flawed, it is often misdirected or uninformed sincerity — but the aim is honesty, with a dose of laughter, tempered by some exhilarating and humbling life lessons.

Where my sincerity appears misdirected, I invite readers to weigh in, sincerely.

My interests are politics, law, history, religion, the Middle East, Israel, and pop culture (in doses). I list politics first because that subject occupies me most often — and because, as George Orwell said in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, “there is no such as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues.” About all things, we must try at least to speak clearly, and as Orwell noted in the same paragraph of the same essay, “the great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”

The Prince is the world’s supremely equipped political tactician, and the Little Prince is the world’s supremely equipped autistic truth-teller. I am merely their admirers, but hope to imagine how they might mentor one another.

“For men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for every one can see, but very few have to feel. Everybody sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are, and those few will not dare to oppose themselves to the many.”

—The Prince, by Nicolo Machiavelli (ch. 18)

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes.”

—The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (p.73)

–Kendrick Macdowell