Rights and Democracy
Why Can’t Our Politicians Get into the Holiday Spirit?
Other kids, my friends, would get two or three presents for Christmas (one of which would be a flannel shirt or something), some would get none, and I’d get this toy store.
The Hammer Gets Nailed
For once, I actually agree with something that with Tom DeLay said. The former Republican leader of Congress recently declared in his most somber tone, “The criminalization of politics undermines our very system.” Wow, so true, Tommy.
Public School Funding: Separate and Skewed
With all the talk about firing “underperforming” teachers, closing the achievement gap, and adopting “common core standards” for students, too many experts are missing a basic source of America’s education woes: the inherently unequal and unfair system for funding public schools within each of the 50 states.
New Hope to Stop Violence against Women
The United States has made great strides to change the sickening attitudes and legal obstacles that for decades held women in the grip of physical and sexual violence, far too often with little recourse, while their abusers went unpunished.
End the Pot Prohibition
I have never smoked marijuana, not even a puff. Not ever.
Audio-Visual Accountability
Political pundits moan that video cameras on the campaign trail stifle candidates from saying much of anything, for fear a gaffe will ruin their careers.
The FBI Got its Groove Back
Most likely, you’re too young to remember J. Edgar Hoover. He led the FBI in the ’40s and ’50s. Badly. He was the Establishment’s enforcer. Liberals lived in fear of appearing on his “list.” Mere suspicion of leftist thought could lead to an interrogation and potential job loss. The media and film industries were purged of many supposedly wrong-thinking Americans.
Patriotic Schlunk
To me, the most patriotic day of the year is not the Fourth of July. It’s not Veteran’s Day. Nor is it Thanksgiving. It’s Election Day. That’s when I feel most American.
Negotiating with Nutjobs
In the witty 1966 classic cult film King of Hearts, a British soldier shows up in a French village run by lunatics after they’d escaped from the local insane asylum as the German Army retreated. Given the number of electoral victories by crazies in the mid-term elections, President Barack Obama might learn more from watching this movie than listening to all the talking heads in Washington.
GOP Magic Act
Republicans now find themselves in the dilemma of a car-chasing dog that finally catches one. What does he do with it?
