In yesterday evening’s umpteenth debate between the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney followed all the rules that my public relations firm teaches executives for controlling contentious public situations: He insisted that everyone follow the rules, he was always courteous and respectful, and he wore a broad smile throughout the debate. And I […]
After excoriating Michele Bachmann and Cowboy Rick Perry, at least symbolically, when they first began to make noises in the polls, I initially decided to hold my silence for a while about Herman Cain, the latest Republican right-wing flavor of the week. The news media seemed to be doing a pretty good job of explaining […]
Imagine Woodstock 1969 with worse music and more sex and drugs. Many tabloid newspapers like The Daily Mail and The New York Post did just that this week and called it Zuccotti Park. The Mail story was particularly scurrilous, claiming that lurking prominently among the Occupy Wall Street protesters congregating in lower Manhattan’s financial district […]
OpEdge is expanding into the performing and other arts by offering a new blog titled “OpEdgy Arts & Performance,” written by distinguished choreographer and dance scholar, Mark Franko. On an occasional basis, Mark will write on various aspects of the performing and other arts. Mark’s writing fits nicely into the OpEdge mentality: it’s provocative, precise […]
Read More… from Take an Opedgy look at arts and performance with Mark Franko’s new blog at OpEdge
One of the recurring subthemes in the news lately has been the need for China to develop a consumer economy. The latest to exhort the Chinese and their consumers about their frugal ways is The New York Times in a front-page article earlier this week titled “As Its Economy Sprints Ahead, China’s People Are Left […]
Our trip to France ended on a dyspeptic note in its very last phase. After enjoying the comforts of French culture, cuisine and superb organizational skills for 16 days, we stepped into the paranoid world of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We had cleared our passports at the passport control point and our […]
The Occupy Wall Street movement got a big boost this week when organized labor decided to get involved. Members of several New York unions came out to Wednesday’s demonstrations and national unions expressed their support. The intervention of the AFL/CIO means more than just more people protesting and more people getting arrested. The unions bring […]
As a former student protestor against the Viet Nam War and for civil rights, I sympathize with and applaud the Occupy Wall Street protestors in lower Manhattan and elsewhere across the country. As an ardent admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and his disciple Martin Luther King, I believe that widespread peaceful disobedience can help change the […]
When you say, “I think” or “I believe,” you haven’t really told a lie, since it’s what you “believe.” So we can’t call Texas Governor Rick Perry a liar for having said over the weekend that he thinks that limiting carbon emissions would devastate the economy. I suppose we’ll have to settle for calling him […]
The current issue of Nation has an opinion piece by Salamishah Tillet that discusses a term of which I was only vaguely aware before: the slutwalk. A slutwalk is an anti-rape march and street protest. As I understand it, the women marching in a slutwalk dress in a provocative and revealing manner that shows plenty of […]
Read More… from The symbolism of a “slutwalk” is clear: No means no