Lloyd Bowers | Author, Novelist, Historian | Divide the Country! | Freedom is a Public Utility | The Results of Polar Bear Research Keep These in the Family

About the Author

Lloyd Bowers was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1952, graduated from Furman University in 1976, and has lived in Charleston, South Carolina since 2002.

The Results of Polar Bear Research is Lloyd's first novel and was published in 2007. Lloyd's next book, Keep These in the Family, is a collection of twelve stories and was published in 2010.

"I grew up in the South," says Lloyd. "The Southern Appalachians is a sort of fixed foot in my life, and the summer-time is a great time to gravitate unpredictably in social settings."

"Freedom is a Public Utility, published 2014, developed from the discovery of a stash of old family letters, dated 1812 to 1857, mailed to my great-great-grandfather John Siegling, who emigrated from Erfurt, Germany, and settled in Charleston in 1820. That he was en route, or 'unterwegs,' for five years impressed me.

"Divide the Country! was published February, 2020. It reflects my concern about the disunity, and even partisan hatred, that plagues the U.S."

Latest Posts

15 Sep 2023

More Diversity!

This article appeared in the August 17th issue of Die Zeit newspaper, written by Hannah Schmidt, a free-lance music critic. In English, the title of her article means, "More diversity! More people of color! Less ignorance!" She addresses her concern about racism and discrimination at one of Germany's notable music competitions. At the end of the first paragraph, she asks the question, "Who makes the decisions about how and why a particular performer wins a prize, and does this system keep up with the changing times?"

13 Sep 2023

Participatory Democracy

During college, I took the introductory political science course from an instructor whose specialization was urban planning. During one class-session, he tried to explain to us the concept of "participatory democracy." I am sure I yawned a lot during his class, as I did during much of my college education, because I had so little sense of career-orientation. The instructor, as urban planner, considered participatory democracy a good concept, as the means to expedite solutions to urban problems. I consulted the Wikipedia article on "Participatory Democracy," which is also mostly favorable.

11 Sep 2023

Battered Republican Syndrome

Human-kind's various arenas reveal a lot about us, how we agree and disagree, how we respond to crises, or don't respond, how we provide solutions to problems, or don't provide them, and finally whether we fight cleanly or ruthlessly to the bitter end. History suggests that human-kind responds slowly to crises, if at all, or procrastinates, then overreacts. We don't like to disturb our routine, no matter the circumstances. We employ palliatives that allow us to remain in denial, that's about all.

08 Sep 2023

Marcus Garvey's Challenge

"Now is the chance for every Negro," Garvey writes, "toward a commercial, industrial standard that will make us comparable with the successful businessmen of other races. . . . All that Africa needs is proper education." At another point in his writings, he states, "If the Negro is inferior, why circumvent him? Why suppress his talent and initiative? Why rob him of his independent gifts?"

06 Sep 2023

So, what is this Booshwahzee?

Americans have heard this term "Bourgeois" all their lives. We look at it as a derogatory description of the smug, complacent middle-class, invented by Karl Marx. Anyone who has ever flirted with Marx's nutty national concepts of government ownership of the means of production knows the term and has parroted Marx's contempt for the bourgeois-class and its wealth-oriented value-system.

04 Sep 2023

Over-control

Former FBI-profiler John Douglas published his autobiography Mindhunter in 1995. It is irreverent as hell, so I knew I'd love it. He describes himself as a "blue-flamer," anxious to please his superiors. He also relates a few hard-edged college escapades that landed him in jail. He flouted authority during college, as often as he enforced it in his professional life. When his fiancee asked him to meet the priest scheduled to marry them, Douglas started running his mouth about meeting her in a topless lounge, where she danced with tassels over her nipples. When one of her tassels flew off, he happened to catch it and returned it to her.

01 Sep 2023

Has the Republican Party become the Steer Party

In his novel The Sun Also Rises, the writer Ernest Hemingway relates how Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton take a train to Pamplona, Spain, to watch a bull-fight. During the trip, Jake explains how workers load the bulls into a truck to take them to the bull-ring. The bulls don't like the workers messing with them and enter the truck ready to butt heads with anyone or anything.

28 Aug 2023

Things Kids Learn

Years ago, my parents put on a supper-party for close friends. Among them was an unmarried man, whom my father had known most of his life. He drank himself into oblivion and was obviously too drunk to drive himself home. Mother mentioned this to another guest who offered to take the drunk home as a passenger in his own car. His wife followed them and picked him up in the drunk man's driveway, after he had accompanied the drunk inside.

25 Aug 2023

Walking in Step

A blogger in London recorded this film-footage on his cell-phone for his Facebook page. It shows a real crowd of tourists crossing the Thames River over the Millenium Foot-bridge on its first day of operation. If you cross the foot-bridge from south to north, St. Paul'sCathedral will loom largely in the foreground. If you cross from north to south, you will see a replica of the old Globe Theatre in Stratford upon Avon, where William Shakespeare staged his plays.

21 Aug 2023

Marxist Celebrities

I have always voted Republican and have no use for Marxism, Soviet Socialism, or anything of that ilk. In a free-society, you can work as hard as you want and reap all the financial rewards, as long as you do it legally. With your earnings, you can also do anything you want, such as starting your own business. You can employ other people. You can look for outside capital and incorporate. It happens everyday in a free society; so wealth happens.

18 Aug 2023

The Masks We Wear

Over the years, I have watched The Mask, starring Jim Carrey, a dozen times, since it appeared in cinemas in 1994. In the beginning, I just laughed myself sick watching Carrey interact with his dog Milo. The scenes of him going through changes in personality and intention, when he put the mask on, fascinated me. He had to try to persuade a psychiatrist that the transformation was real, but the psychiatrist was buying it.

15 Aug 2023

Why Are They so Angry?

Parents have to tolerate the actions of children, when they whine about being denied something, or when they browbeat us: "How can you be so cruel to me!" The arguments turn into tantrums as they try to gain power against us. They fixate on getting more stuff, fighting off our attempts to distract them: "Cookies, Mommy!" "Allowance, Daddy!" day after day.

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About the Author

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