Heat-Moon offers a view of 1848 America via a British doctor’s journal in this introspective adventure narrative. After 34-year-old physician Nathaniel Trennant gives a lecture in London on fantastical beasts, an American sea captain in attendance offers him a berth on the Narwhale for a cross-Atlantic voyage. The philosophically minded doctor accepts, writing in his journal that he has a “slender notion of why I am outward bound, but I am quite lacking awareness of what I am bound for.
The lower our compass of tolerance, the lower our compass of democracy. Democracy should not be considered an absolute but rather something measured by its degree of humane liberty. I have foreboding the current degree of American democracy may not be sustainable. Indications I have seen on my travels are quite equivocal. Of even greater import: If the durability of this new nation is in doubt, then what does the American experiment portend for the rest of the world?
I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
― John Adams, The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
I went to Sierra Vista last Friday for an appointment with the Well Fargo employee that was licensed to help me with my brokerage account. His license is very restrictive but he can act as a translator between a brokerage trader and myself since I can not hear well enough to talk with the trader directly. What I wanted to try to do was lock in the gain that I have in one of my stock holdings that has experienced irrational exuberance during the past six weeks. Said gain to be booked in 2026 rather than 2025. I don’t know if the plan is going to work but what I have done is I sold a Covered Call with a strike price that is about equal to where the market for the stock is now. The Call will expire 9 January 2026. If not executed by then I will sell the shares at the market price if it has not dropped too much. If the Call is executed between now and 31 December I’ll have the gain booked in 2025 which is not all bad, I just wanted to put off the tax hit until 2027 if I could. I’ll see how is all turns out, maybe made a great decision OR perhaps I would have been better off just selling now at the market.
The other place that I wanted to stop at was Taco Giro for breakfast which claims to open at 7:00. They were still closed at 7:30 so I went to Café Olé. I also went to the VA Clinic and got an appointment for my annual eye exam on the same day that I have a lab blood draw. This will save me a 140 mile round trip. On the way out of town I stopped at Food City and picked up a few groceries. I needed gas and could have got it in Sierra Vista but decided to fill up in Benson so I’ll probably have enough gas to get back to Sierra Vista in January. Don’t plan on doing much driving around between now and then.