Where was I? In my office in downtown Pittsburgh speaking by phone with the Manhattan-based chief financial officer of a Fortune 500 company whose habit was to have a financial TV station on in his office constantly for the stock ticker. Suddenly he cuts me off mid-sentence and screams, “Oh, s—t, on the TV, right […]
Texas Governor Rick Perry came to last night’s debate of Republican presidential candidates with both six-shooters blazing. Unfortunately for Cowboy Rick, the recently anointed frontrunner, all he managed to hit were his own feet. Again and again. From the onset, co-moderator Brian Williams set up a shoot-out between Cowboy Rick and former governor, investment banker […]
Read More… from In Republican debate, Rick Perry draws his gun and shoots himself in the foot.
On my recent trip to Washington, D.C., I visited the wonderful Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The museum excels at meeting its mission to dedicate itself “to inspiring curiosity, discovery, and learning about the natural world through its unparalleled research, collections, exhibitions, and education outreach programs.” The many exhibits explore evolution, geography, mineralogy, biology, archeology, […]
It has been very hard for me to write my thoughts upon seeing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for the first time last week, even though I knew what I wanted to say from the moment I saw the first display. The difficulty comes in overcoming my powerful emotional reaction as a Jew so […]
Read More… from United States should turn the Holocaust Museum into a museum against all genocide
Perhaps to dishonor Labor Day, over the weekend Bloomberg Finance broadcast an article bemoaning the fact that the U.S. labor force may be shrinking. What they are talking about is not the number of jobs but the number of people with or looking for jobs. The key fact presented by writers Steve Matthews and Joshua […]
Earlier today, the Obama administration announced that it is abandoning its plan to tighten air-quality rules to reduce emissions of smog-causing chemicals. The announcement comes after weeks of zealous lobbying by large corporations, which said the new rule would cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. The move—or in this case, lack […]
Reading the great 20th century philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell’s The History of Western Philosophy has made me wonder once again about the motivation of the Koch brothers and other ultra-rich who oppose environmental regulation and global warming. I’m thinking specifically about Russell’s analysis of John Locke’s ethical doctrines. In Russell’s probably accurate version of […]
We have two temporary tax cuts. One is on federal income taxes; it’s been around for 10 years and has benefited upper incomes much more than anyone else. The other temporary tax cut is on payroll (Social Security and Medicare) taxes and went into effect a little more than a year ago; because there is […]
Read More… from Republicans get it wrong on which temporary tax cut to extend and which to end
For most of the history of direct and representative democracy, only a limited few were allowed to participate as voters in making decisions or electing representatives, typically free males with property. Ancient Athens, the late medieval and early Renaissance Italian city states and England for most of its democratic history come immediately to mind. In […]
Right-wing accusations that the mainstream news media is liberal, if not left-wing, predate Bruce Tinsley, whose “Mallard Fillmore” comic strip appears daily in Conservative-leaning media. Tinsley’s contribution to what has been a constant propaganda theme since the Viet Nam War era is to create a parallel cartoon universe peopled by a regular set of absurd […]