About

The Bad Manners Gun Club is a concept I first imagined about 40 years ago, and found its first expression in a laughably amateur but sincere one-off literary magazine I browbeat my English teacher into letting me produce during my senior year in high school. The medium is obviously different now, but the perspective is still the same: question everything, even if it offends someone, including me, because the truth doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings. 

I am, officially, a Contributing Editor and Columnist and member of the Editorial Board for The Manila Times, which is the oldest daily newspaper in the Philippines – founded about two months before the Treaty of Paris that ended the Spanish-American War and 350 or so years of Spanish colonial rule here – and the second-oldest English-language newspaper in Asia. In addition to my Rough Trade column (which appears on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday each week), I write three of the The Manila Times’ daily editorials every week, and do occasional in-depth news articles, special features, and one-on-one interviews broadcast on The Manila Times’ streaming channel. I am also the moderator of most of The Manila Times’ monthly forums, which cover a wide range of topics, as well as the editor of The Manila Times 500, an annual magazine that provides a comprehensive guide to the Philippine business sector. I’ve also published a book on nuclear energy, and, among other things, I am working on developing a podcast, as well as doing media and communications consulting work for a variety of clients.

This blog is my own personal stomping ground, and here you will find some of my Manila Times work – although out of respect for the place that has become my second home and family, only appearing here after a respectful interval has passed from its original publication – and much that simply didn’t fit into my allotment of publication slots there, or is in one way or another unsuitable for publication elsewhere. As time goes on, I will be adding more features to this website – I paid for some long-term service, and I intend to make use of it – so I hope you will visit often.  

A note of caution to sensitive readers: You will find a great deal of profanity in most posts here, although I do endeavor to use it correctly. There are two reasons for this; first, as this is my personal blog, I see no reason not to talk like I normally do when I am not in professional mode. Second, many AI content scrapers can be blocked by the inclusion of profanity in a text, and since AI is evil and must be destroyed, I am only too happy to trip those programs up in whatever way I can. 

About me personally, I am an American transplant to the Philippines, having been in this weird and fascinating country for 20+ years, and a single dad of two college-aged kids (one a nursing student, the other in electronic engineering), although I am not “single” per se, so sorry, ladies. I actually spent the first half of my working life in the automotive industry in aftersales and logistics for BMW, which, among other things, made me a crack automotive mechanic, driver, and expert on air travel and hotels near the airport. I have a BS in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in American History from the University of Utah, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Public Utilities Regulation from the Università degli Studi di Torino (University of Turin).