The ethnic and religious conflicts that are taking place across the Middle East prompted me to think about my own family’s ethnic history. The Simpsons are primarily Scottish with a bit of English and Irish tossed in just to make things interesting. The family name is actually derived from the name Fraser whose origins lie in the north of France and apparently meant “strawberry”.

A little bit of Scottish history— The Fraser name came from a 12th century Norman warlord called Simon Fraser who moved into the northeastern part of the country sometime after the Norman invasion of Britain.

Northwest Branch is a stream that runs through the suburban Piedmont country of Montgomery and Prince George’s County down to the Anacostia River. Much it is parkland and offers residents and visitors a narrow, but rich ribbon of green space through what is a highly developed region.

I spent my teenage years near Northwest Branch during the 1960’s--- a couple miles south of Route 29 in Hillandale. For kids in the neighborhood, the Branch was a both a playground and a quick shortcut to Woodmoor and the more distant downtown Silver Spring.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about “knowledge workers” and the “New Economy”. When I was at the University of Maryland, I trained to be a high school teacher. I ended up doing that along with a variety of other jobs. Now I am a knowledge worker, or more accurately, a member of the digital proletariat.

The use of atomic bombs against civilians was a logical outgrowth of the industrialization of war. WWI showed the world how the mass production of death could be organized to kill large numbers of soldiers. World War II advanced the technology to include the deaths of large numbers of civilians.

There is a movement afoot here in the USA to have a BUYCott of CITGO, which is owned by the Venezuela national oil company. Buy gas at CITGO and help finance the revolution in Venezuela.

A simple proposal for solving the mideast crisis, now and forever, followed by how I really feel about the mess that we’re in.