The Declaration of Independence asserts that all people have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We often distill this powerful phrase and the holiday of July 4th into one word: freedom. For example, I just inputted “July 4th + freedom” into Google and found more than 12.5 million responses. Inputting “Declaration […]
The news this morning that U.S. military casualties in Iraq are at their highest since 2008 must have surprised many people who thought the war ended last August. And those Rip van Winkles among us who just woke up after falling asleep when Bush II stood on an aircraft carrier and declared the war over […]
My first real awareness of Michele Bachmann came about a year ago when she proclaimed from the Conservative media rooftops that 2 million people attended the Glenn Beck march in Washington. That was 25 times the number that scientific methodologies counted for this much overblown rally. I thought it amazing that Bachmann could so diffidently […]
Read More… from Do people not know what a liar Michele Bachmann is, or don‘t they care?
Is it something in the water? Or maybe it’s a weird side effect of Fukushima radiation hitting the American shore? Or maybe it’s because our political and policy-making classes have all been drinking the same free market Kool-Aid? Lapped up, as we know, from the troughs of large multinational corporations, banks and the ultra wealthy. […]
The last few days has seen this year’s two-day cycle of stories about deep-fried food at state fairs. For the past several years, virtually all national and much local coverage of state fairs has reduced to a gee-whiz feature on some new recipe to dip in batter and then deep-fry an unexpected common food or, […]
Yesterday morning’s news brought two stories that together exemplify our current system of government: regulators who are in bed with the regulated; legislators whose sole constituency comprises big businesses; a government dedicated to lowering taxes and regulations above all else. The first story I saw yesterday led the first page of The New York Times. […]
Among the upper classes in the Germany and Austria of the late 19th and the first few decades of the 20th century, dueling scars, called “Mensur,” were considered a badge of honor, a sign of status. Fencing was the most popular sport among college students, and the social and economic elite among young men proudly […]
A study by a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania released this morning shows that children on Medicaid are denied care more and have to wait much longer for appointments than other children. The details of the study are stunning: Two-thirds of children whose parents mentioned they were on Medicaid were denied […]
Don’t berate yourself for missing the release of a study the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released late last week. As of this morning, Google News reports only 13 stories in total. Most of the stories were based on a New York Times article; evidently the FCC released the study to the Times early, a frequent […]
If a Jewish nonfiction writer sticks around long enough, he or she will be tempted to use the shop-worn “define chutzpah” rhetorical device, which consists of defining chutzpah and then applying the term to the acts or statements of someone or some group, or in simply saying that someone embodies the definition of chutzpah. Alas, […]