About

The Flyoverland Crank features the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer.

I'm an independent, self-published columnist who, until relatively recently, published a brand-spanking new column every week for seven years. I would be willing to part with a body part of lesser importance to be hired/syndicated/published by someone whose checks don't bounce and would let me be me. If you're that someone:

TheFlyoverlandCrank@gmail.com

"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." -Nietzsche. 

My why is my daughter, son-in-law, the Stickies, and a desire to see if Western Civilization's ongoing attempted suicide is successful. Although my column doesn't include a comment section, feel free to love, hate, or troll me on my Facebook page. 

In its first incarnation, this column ran from July 2015 till July 2022. I decided to take a brief sabbatical (for personal reasons, primarily health-related) but I'm back in the saddle. My presabb columns are currently being carefully archived and will soon be gone. They're going to be stored in a hermetically sealed vault in the basement of a secret Taoist monetary located somewhere in China's Wudang mountains. 

Until I become rich and famous — whereupon I shall secure the services of a high-powered law firm that specializes in crushing copyright violators — my work is freely available to republish under the terms of my Creative Commons license. As long as you give me credit, edit as little as humanly possible, and link back to this site you may publish my stuff. I wouldn't mind if you lavished praise upon my work.

“At this point I reveal myself in my true colours, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves. I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible.” - Kenneth Clark, "Civilization"
M.M.