Dick Davis:  

February 2, 2026 Google: OurMexicoDickDavis Yes, no spaces. There are sixteen travel segments and three FCHS reunion segments. Happy memories! Dick January 17, 2026 Accidental Ambassador Gordo The Comic Strip Art of Gus Arriola Robert C. Harvey and Gus Arriola This book sized combo: comics, cartooning, gags, art, history and bio of Gus Arriola the cartoonist, traces both the development and evolution of Gordo, the character, from Bean Farmer, to Taxi Driver to Tourist Guide and Gus Arriola’s art style, story line and gags, often allusions and puns. The book is a history, an education and an inspiration. It’s Gus’s history, a Mexican cultural education and a general inspiration for artists, comics, cartoonist and readers. It’s just plain fun. I just finished re-reading Gordo, which I read and reviewed in 2017. This time I appreciated the educational writing and planning that went into Gordo. I think any artist or writer could benefit from Gus Arriola’s outlining his methods in selecting characters, motifs, situations, humor, word play and compassion, all of which lead to conflict, drama and story! …no drawbacks. January 13, 2026 July 9, 2025 Greeks and their Gods…Well, Goddesses too OK, so I’m in this Art and Myth class and I get out some old children’s book that gives you the history and layout of the gods. If I’ve got it right, there’s Chaos (so there hasn’t been as much change as I’d hoped for in 3000 years), it’s a muddle and it’s black. Then something disturbs Chaos, separates the mess and we’ve got Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky) and they give each other a big hug and maybe a little something extra. Gaia becomes Mother Earth, has 12 kids called Titans and like all new parents, they think their children are gods. Well, beginner’s luck it seems, cause the next batch, are monsters. Cyclopes with one big eye and siblings with extra arms and heads. Course, Mama Earth, she loves them all. But Papa Uranus, he kind of suffers from buyer’s remorse. Well, Uranus puts the unruly ones in their place. Yea, some place called Tartarus. But Gaia objects, gives a sickle to her youngest Titian son Cronus (that’s where we get Father Time with his scythe), and Cronus does the evil gelding deed on his daddy and pitches the two oysters into the sea. Well, they froth and foam and we get a new goddess, Aphrodite, named for the white foam of the sea. Boy, I tell you, these Greeks move the storyline along. So, Cronus, his mother’s favorite, he gets thinking that maybe someday he’ll have a kid and that kid will want to take over and push Cronus off his throne. So, every time his sister-wife Rhea (yea, these Greeks have no shame, incest and adultery make up a good part of their ordinary behavior), well, gets pregnant, why Cronus, he swallows the kid like some after dinner Tums tablet. He’s swallow 5 in row and Rhea’s getting tired of all the effort just to give Cronus heartburn. So, she gets some advice from Mother Earth, swaps the next kid for a stone wrapped up in swaddling clothes and gives it to Cronus. He gulps it down, never blinks and never suspects. So, while the siblings are in daddy’s tummy, except this last child Zeus is carted away to Mt. Ida and raised in a cave. He’s got this goat with special horns. One horn drips nectar, the other ambrosia. Now that’s the origin of Cornucopia, another side story. OK, Zeus gets bigger and stronger. But he needs help. He’s married a smart gal named Metis one of the Titans daughters (don’t ask questions, we’ll never finish). So, Metis makes up a magic herb, “Good for you,” well this is what she tells Cronus. But instead it makes him vomit. And up come all 5 gods and they’re on Zeus’s side. Cronus can see the handwriting and maybe he’s thinking about the sickle, he figures he’ll just make an exit. So, Zeus and this brothers and sisters, they take over and rule from Mt. Olympus. Dear Classmate of Any Year, My guess is that if you haven't had extensive travel experience in Mexico, your judgement is likely akin the, The parable of the blind men who have never seem an elephant before and who learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it. I recommend: Adam and Heidi, videos, WOW, over the top in coverage and quality. My suggestion, Google: OUR “FAVORITES” OF MEXICO FAREWELL VIDEO! Mexico has gone from grey and brown to technicolor since my first trip in 1975....improvements everywhere, north, south, east, west, cities, towns country....why haven’t we? May 17, 2025...just read: We All Want to Change the World My Journey Through Social Justice Movements from the 1960s to Today Kareem Abdul-Jabbar The sub-title is a complete overview of the book. The chapters themselves are both a history and an analysis of the civil rights denied Blacks; and we were there, from the 1960s to the present, at least I was, the protests, sit-ins, marches, violence, bombings vs. non-violence, the supporters vs. the authorities, who often made things worse and sympathy gained for the Blacks who were beaten, clubbed, fire hosed, attacked by German Shepherds police dogs, jailed, murdered, voters intimidated.... sure, doesn’t look like the USA we learned about in school. Our “exceptionalism” often stands on the moral low ground. Kareem is a better advocate and interpreter of the “times” than the times itself. The biggest surprise was how prolific Kareem has been in writing in support of Civil Rights, histories of Blacks and supporting STEM education in Black communities....and I just thought of him as a basketball player. 2-6-25 The Darwinian Trap The Hidden Evolutionary Forces That Explain Our World (And Threaten Our Future) Kristian Ronn I’m not quite on Ronn’s page. Darwin Demons, or Moloch, just seems mostly cultural, less genetic. Moloch: in the German expressionist 1927 film Metropolis, Moloch was the factory that demanded human sacrifices. The film portrays extremes, Head: rich, indulgent, Hands: mindless, slaving factory workers, then Maria, salvation, the Heart, the key to a balanced society. Ayn Rand wrote The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism in the early Sixties, she saw the trait as a positive. I wonder if Ronn ever took a psychology class? I recall studies, noted success was mostly due to the ability to “defer gratification,” and it seemed that way to me. All those years getting an education counted. I recall, “altruistic” individuals and societies, which seems more cultural than genetic. Yet, Ronn quotes Richard Dawkins, regarding evolution, but doesn’t mention Dawkins wrote the Selfish Gene, which basically is what Ronn is saying. Mostly, Ronn is speculating, “may” and “might” are often in his chart of “mass extinctions,” I think since the 1980s, deregulation is the basic cause for economic disruption, division of extreme rich, grinding poverty and hollowing out the middle class than a Darwinian Trap. If anything, the Trappers are having fewer children than the Trapped. “Areas where deregulation has been implemented include: telecommunications, airlines, energy, (electricity and natural gas), banking, transportation, financial services, ....to foster more competition and innovation.” Once we had a progressive Income tax, which tempered the extremes. Now we have billionaires and homeless encampments. I recall a time when attorneys were prohibited from advertising, when there were usury laws, financial intuitions were separated into Saving and Loans, Commercial Lending, Investment Banking, Mutual Funds, and Insurance by the Glass-Steagall Act, which did not allow mergers among themselves. Banking was state wide, not national, there were limits to media, radio, TV, and newspapers ownership, actually when there were more reporters than opinion shapers. In the Sixties, there was the draft, everyone had “skin in the game.” that changed with the end of Vietnam War, 1973. Now it’s all volunteers, the result is our military comes from mostly middle and low class, no skin for the educated or their families, and the result is no protest marches, 19 years in Afghanistan, losers and PDSD. Innovation thrived under deregulation and so did mergers and bankruptcies. There is less competition virtually everywhere. Union busting and Right-to-Work laws took its share from the Middle Class. Union jobs moved first to the non-Union South, then many left the country. Globalization was no help. China not only took jobs but left our skilled workers in rusting cities, our farming communities, stripped by merging corporate farming, degrading the land and poisoning water, all for corn for Mexico and hogs for the Chinese. Are these the evolutionary forces that threaten our future? And how do we explain the Go Fund Me phenomena when strangers with heart give a helping hand? Maybe it is genetic, some are angels. others demons. January 25, 2025 1-29-25 Book Review by Dick My Childhood Maxim Gorky Maxim Gorky states, he is “recording atrocious memories of our bestial Russian life.” Gorky endured a brutal and terrorizing childhood. Gorky’s grandmother was a spiritual woman, kind and loving, she bears her lot and injuries, as if penitence for sin, she believes she must endure with patience. She’s illiterate, yet intelligent with a memory for stories and a facility for storytelling. Grandpa is close too, if not truly, sadistic. Whippings are frequent, yet Gorky accepts them as normal experience as are clashes and fights with neighborhood gangs as if they’re part of life’s environment. Gorky’s not passive, he fights…. a single boy won’t take him on...Expand for more