Baby Scapegoats

I’d like to welcome America’s first baby of 2011 to the world. Eighteen seconds into New Year’s Day, Peter Gabriel Imson was delivered on the U.S. territory of Guam. Named for the former lead singer in the band Genesis, little Peter Gabriel weighed...

GOP: Man of the Year

Time Magazine has its Man of the Year Award; I have mine. There was a bumper crop of candidates this year, a year marked by one bizarre turn of events after another. Who would have imagined, for example, that President Barack Obama, having gotten a commitment from oil...

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. Of course, what I...

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. That happened to George Allen. At a campaign stop in 2006, the former Senator (R-VA) was caught on tape repeatedly...

Dumbed-Down Nation

As pundits and politicians argue about what the GOP midterm election sweep means, there are growing and disturbing signs that America increasingly is moving (and voting) to retreat from our nation’s commitment to scientific research and knowledge. We’re “dumbing...