It is my hope that my observations and experiences will augment your own, and that they will do so in a manner that you will find interesting and sometimes entertaining. 

In setting them down, I considered it important to neither depend on the media's designation of an issue as significant, nor to shy away from subjects bearing this imprimatur.   My only criteria were to deal in things that I could either see directly for myself, or figure out through simple logic, without requiring reams of statistical data or special access to prominent persons.

If you find the results edifying, I hope that you may begin to question the generally prevailing presumption that somehow, our own direct observations are inferior to what is handed down to us via the media.

Who knows?  Maybe one day a great many of us will adopt the practice of putting what we discover about our world into notes in bottles.

In the meantime, this bottle of mine has been plucked from the surf and unstoppered.   Its contents are in your hands.

It is time to begin examining them.