Whatever your issue, budget, debt, global warming, immigration, guns, healthcare, civil rights or any other topic, the reason things aren’t getting better is because of something that controls your issue: Money. Big money. Big money that influences elections, politicians and distorts the will of the people into the will of the very few enormously wealthy… [read more]
For Purist Lefties and Windshields
I’m surely talking to myself here, but this just might fit for others, too. JA ********************************************************* The Radical Right provides enough material in a single sentence of extremism than can be corrected in a 750-word response. I’ve heard as many as three fictional facts in a single short sentence. Let them go on for two… [read more]
Pogo
As the heat subsides from the immediacy of the Boston Marathon bombings and shootings, our national dialogue naturally turns to more contemplative issues, like preventing such attacks in the future. Concurrently, we continue to wade in the morass of Sandy Hook and our elected leaders blather ineffectively over action to prevent more gun massacres. The… [read more]
The Best Thing That Could Have Happened
Sure, it was very simple and would have made only marginal improvement in violence reduction. Of course, we can characterize it as something that would have been nearly pointless. Still, the bill went down in defeat and it’s the best thing that could have happened. Let’s start with what it was and what it was… [read more]
A Special Kind of Nuts
North Carolina’s recently introduced House Joint Resolution 494 tells us that, “. . . each state is sovereign and may independently determine how the state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion . . . ,” and that, “. . . the North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit… [read more]
A New American Award
Nanoarchaeum Equitans Virus The smallest known organism There are scientists who feel that viruses are not the smallest organisms because they lack a cellular structure. Others believe that this condition is not disqualifying and it is this group of scientists whose views are invoked for this noteworthy recognition, The Virus Trophy. Our nation has… [read more]
Steam Engines, Headnotes and 91%
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868 and Section 1 of that amendment begins this way: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process… [read more]
An Island of Clarity
As a student of human behavior I have been trying to understand the craziness that is our social and political culture. So many blatantly false things have been said with great earnestness and an odd assumption of integrity. The absolutist behavior and mean spiritedness displayed for years has been confounding and dismaying. What’s going on?… [read more]
Conservatism Today
Conservatism can be defined in many ways, although dictionary definitions typically use the word itself as a descriptor: We should conserve the values and ideas of the past. Surely, there is some good sense in that. Another definition, the attribution to which I have not found, defines today’s conservatism this way: Conservatism has become the… [read more]
Other Than Your Mother
President Obama laid out offers to curb government spending two years ago by declaring that he is open to discussions around cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, much to the dismay of most Democrats and to left-of-center Americans of all colors. The programs have been on the table, yet Republicans have been complaining since then that… [read more]
