This ran in the LA Times. As long as our elected officials have plush health insurance – the system will remain broken. The other day, I admitted to a friend that I don’t have health insurance. “What?!” he gasped. “But you’re married. Isn’t that part of the deal?” He reacted as if I had just… Continue reading
Post Category → Column
The Hillary Standard
She’s running for president, people, not Prom Queen. My grandparents just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. They got hitched right after Grampa got back from the war. They’re both educated professionals. They’re proud Americans. We come from a long line of Southern Democrats. My grandparents, the mavericks, are first generation lifelong Republicans. Grampa has a… Continue reading
Whitewashing and Cherry Picking Religion
I was born into the group the Children of God (COG) or as they are called now, The Family, the Family International, or Activated Ministries. It’s a Christian cult started in the late 1960’s made up of dropout hippies in Huntington Beach. They went “international” after the leader was sought for kidnapping and tax evasion…. Continue reading
Illegal Immigrants Have Been Given a Bad Name
This also ran in the LA Daily News, Huffington Post and BrooWaha. Rebranding is an All-American pastime. If necessity is the mother of invention – then bad press is the mother of re-invention . It’s not just Chevron, while having record profits on oil, trying to get the word out about conservation. Or Frito-Lay, whose… Continue reading
Bring Back the Snack Tax
This article ran in the LA Times. Americans get really weird when we talk about obesity. We treat fat people like anorexic teenage girls. We don’t want to freak them out or hurt their feelings. It might turn them into cutters. We dance around the reasons for obesity as if it’s a mystery, a phenomenon… Continue reading
American Apparel Has Lost Its Way
I love swag. I do. Free stuff! I have a menagerie of acquired t-shirts in my closet ranging from production companies to Bar Mitzvahs. It was through my swag infatuation I discovered American Apparel. I was given a t-shirt that fit perfectly and I googled the name on the label. This was back in late… Continue reading
The Puritans Were Not The Founding Fathers
This is cross posted at Huffington Post: We’re doing well as a country when the Religious Right is unhappy. When James Dobson and Pat Robertson are upset, the canary is alive in the coal mine! It’s like – look at us, we’re still a democratic nation! The Ten Commandments haven’t replaced the Bill of Rights…. Continue reading
Stand Up, Sit Down, Do Your Civic Duty
I consider myself to be a decent citizen. I vote. I recycle. I don’t litter. I yield to most pedestrian traffic. But when I got a notice that I was selected for jury service, I did what every red-blooded American does – I wondered if I should pretend it got lost in the mail. “Notice?… Continue reading
Breach Out and Touch Someone
This ran in Newsday and the LA Daily News. Lets say you went to a restaurant. It’s your local place. You go there. The food is mediocre. The service is horrible. The wait time is ridiculous. The employees are incompetent. When you request to speak to a manager, they say they”˜ll get back to you…. Continue reading
Out of My Cold Dead Hands
It takes nothing more than a large-scale massacre to get gun advocates “up in arms.” The police hadn’t even finished counting the bodies at Virginia Tech before pro-gun talking points were issued. And the message was, “Let’s not exploit this tragedy to bring up gun control.” Look, if 32 people all on the same campus,… Continue reading