Rights and Democracy
Oscar, in Black and White
You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught
We all remember the teachers who most influenced us. Life lessons learned in the classroom stay with you for decades. I was lucky to have several great teachers, but my fifth grade teacher stands out the most. Nancy Livingston taught for 25 years in Princeton, New...
Let’s Put Prison Sentences on Probation
You may have heard there's a growing political movement against mass incarceration. Someone should clue in the judges. In the past 30 years, federal judges have turned to imprisonment — as opposed to probation — as the punishment of choice for even minor crimes,...
Sanders Proves the Pundits Wrong
The problem with applying conventional wisdom to political campaigns is that it can suddenly be upended by an unconventional campaign. National media pundits have been riveted by Donald Trump's flagrantly narcissistic run for the Republican presidential nomination....
Usurping the Bush and Clinton Dynasties
Throwing My Fez in the Ring
Most presidential candidates, with the glaring exception of Donald Trump, say Islam is no enemy of the United States. I agree wholeheartedly. And how could there be a better way to prove that point than for a Muslim cartoonist to lead this great nation? That’s why I’m...
The Year of Trump
Is 2015 over yet? Is it safe to come out now? What a bummer. Mass shootings, cops using unarmed civilians for target practice, the Middle East in rubble, terrorist attacks, Donald Trump. Trump wasn’t the worst of it, perhaps. But he certainly was the most irritating....
Why Isn’t the Media Feeling the Bern?
Let's go to the scoreboard to see who's winning the exciting presidential election media coverage game. The Tyndall Report, a non-partisan media monitoring firm that has been tracking the nightly news broadcasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC, found that Trump is tromp, tromp,...
Enstrictly Speaking, 2016 Could Be a Trailrazer
My 9-year-old daughter hunkers down for hours with the Warriors books. She’s on her fifth run through the dozens of tomes in this series that our local libraries keep handy about clans of cats who want nothing to do with people. Poring over them does wonders for my...
The Trans-Pacific Trade Scam
Last spring, President Barack Obama got downright crabby about people criticizing the mammoth Trans-Pacific Partnership he's trying to sell to Congress and the public. More and more Americans are learning that the TPP would undermine America's very sovereignty, giving...
