I asked a reporter at Unnamed Major Metropolitan Newspaper, why they don’t cover suicides. Why is it that traditionally in the press there’s a veil of silence draped over taking your own life? He said it’s because they don’t want to encourage the behavior. The concern is if they report on it; others will copy…. Continue reading →

Yesterday, I was idling behind a seven-year-old Saturn sedan with an anti-Obama bumper sticker reading: “Because everyone deserves some of what you’ve worked hard for.” There’s a knee-jerk response to dismiss the driver as being some dupe naively parroting slogans not meaningful in his tax bracket. (You’d never see that sticker on a Rolls-Royce.) It’s… Continue reading →

It’s not easy denying evolution while championing Social Darwinism. The Republicans have a delicate two-step to perform: pro-some-Bible and pro-some-science. Despite a global scientific consensus on evolution, Republican politicians embrace a literal interpretation of the Bible when it comes to how we all got here. But their reading gets suddenly metaphorical when it comes to… Continue reading →

There was a 90 percent top marginal tax rate under President Dwight Eisenhower. Ronald Reagan raised taxes nearly every year he was in office and still managed to quadruple the national debt. Teddy Roosevelt was an anti-business trust-buster who snatched Yosemite away from private profits. Gerald Ford ended a long pointless war in Vietnam even… Continue reading →

The Moche lived in northern Peru from about 100-700 A.D. Their molded ceramics are still a highlight in the annals of human accomplishment. If you walk through a museum of pre-Columbian art, it’s easy to spot a Moche piece ”” the faces are so realistic you expect them to wink at you. Around 500 A.D.,… Continue reading →

The Iowa Straw Poll last weekend is to election season what Labor Day is to Fall; it’s official now ”” the season has begun! I don’t care about the “viability” of candidates. I am not a prognosticator. Well, if I were, I’d be a very bad one. I said former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was… Continue reading →

Just imagine there was a giant swarm of super-super liberal freshmen in Congress. They had given the President a “shellacking,” secured a large number of seats in the House of Representatives and had been on the job for eight months. Just a bunch of lockstep liberals clogging up the Capitol. In that time, they’d done… Continue reading →

The difference between a documentary and a reality show is staging. A documentary tells a story about real life. The subjects are normally not paid, not actors and the story is non-fiction. It’s a quiet, illuminating and thoughtful genre (read: boring). Reality shows are like life, in that people on these programs do things people… Continue reading →

There have been occasional cases of polio (poliomyelitis) throughout human history. The Roman Emperor Claudius suffered from a disease as a child thought to be polio: muscle weakness, severe pain and paralysis. But it wasn’t until the summer of 1910 that it became an epidemic in the modern industrialized world. In fact for the next… Continue reading →

GOP leaders in Congress don’t want a balanced-budget amendment. The party which rails against government bureaucracy is counting on government bureaucracy to prevent them from successfully changing our founding documents. It’s perfect because they don’t actually want to amend the Constitution ”” well, not in a serious way. Maybe in a drunken, overly-clever, 1:30 AM… Continue reading →

Is being gay something one chooses? Are we all capable of being gay or lesbian, but the better among us choose to be straight? Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota governor and current candidate vying for the 2012 GOP nomination, was asked by David Gregory on NBC’s Meet the Press (since Pawlenty has shown himself to be… Continue reading →

In 1950 a largely unaccomplished lawmaker from Wisconsin, Senator Joe McCarthy, alleged that Commie sympathizers were infiltrating the U.S. Government and Hollywood. “Communist subversion!” was the claim; Red Scare, the aim. Televised hearings were held. Lives were ruined. No evidence of his accusations was found. McCarthyism, as it’s now known, is a blight in American… Continue reading →

Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. It boasts of having 1.2 million Americans on their payroll. Its reported annual profits are around $13 billion. So it’s safe to say since it is so big ”” and so ubiquitous ”” and so obviously successful ”” the government can now stop subsidizing it. Let me… Continue reading →