I was a WW2 post-war baby raised on the "oil patch" (Permian Basin), mostly in SE New Mexico. I went to two kindergartens and six grade schools. I spent 2 years overseas working in several countries as part of a university co-op program, which was a liberating experience for me. I came out of the late 1960s as a progressive liberal, surviving the regional conservatism I grew up with. I studied engineering, math, and economics (B.S. and M.A. degrees). I was shocked that GW Bush was elected 36 years after 1968... Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders are my favorite politicians. I agree with Sinclair Lewis's attitude that America is a most contradictory and often depressing place. Today we still have inequities and callous individualism which makes the U.S. the most socially backward of the industrialized countries. Moving on, fine art photography has been a serious interest of mine for many years, although I have not worked with the kind of consistent dedication to earn the title "artist". While working as an economist, I studied (non-degree) photography at the UNM Fine Arts Dept. I have strong interests in cosmology, consciousness, and time. Organized religion is not for me.