Category: Politics

50 YEARS LATER

JUNE 7, 2024 – It’s instructive, I think, to view the Duly Defeated’s stranglehold on the Party of Lincoln—and Nixon—through the historic prism of the Watergate Era. This perspective can reassure hand-ringers worried that the Duly Defeated might well become the Duly Elected. During the first impeachment hearings of Biden’s immediate predecessor—remember that far back?—a …

CITIZENSHIP

JUNE 6, 2024 – For years the Soviet view of the D-Day invasion was inversely proportionate to the American obsession with commemoration of that historic day. Stalin had long been pressing Churchill and Roosevelt to open a second front in Western Europe to draw Germans away from the Eastern Front, where the Nazis had been …

“Nothing New Under the Sun”

JUNE 4, 2024 – In search of a topic for today’s post, I first scanned the early morning news headlines, but all that came through was, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Then, while comfortably seated on our back porch, I happened to glance up from my cup of java just as a bird …

VOTING FOR CAPTAIN ABOARD A LIFEBOAT ADRIFT

JUNE 3, 2024 – Voter dissatisfaction with each of the two major candidates in a presidential election has long been a feature of the American political landscape. This phenomenon persists in the current round, but not voting or voting for a third-party candidate is no more likely to produce a “happy result” than these maverick …

WHAT IS TO BE LEARNED FROM WHAT WE KNOW

MAY 1, 2024 – Last week as I joined the other passengers inching our way down the entrance ramp onto the Delta plane that would fly us from BDL to MSP, I noticed the checkered condition of the paint on the outside of the fuselage around the doorway. Obviously, the A320-200 had been in service …

THE DEGRADATION OF DEMOCRACY

MARCH 30, 2024 – We’re a big, complex country; 330 million souls, an annual GDP of $26 trillion; billions of transactions and interactions each day that sustain our health, creature comforts, and better ways of life to which we’re accustomed. “Government,” as it were, plays a critical role in how we’ve organized ourselves. It legislates, …

A GOOD THING: OUR PERPETUAL STATE OF “GAME ON”

DECEMBER 17, 2023 – I see a close parallel between certain team sports and the infinite spectrum of world problems. If the analogy doesn’t provide solutions, at least it allows reconciliation of chronic frustration against persistent reality. I start, though, with a team sport that’s not parallel to battling issues of civilization: basketball. Played at …

KEEPING MY HEAD DOWN FOR NOW BUT NOT IN THE SAND

DECEMBER 12, 2023 – Like many of my readers—“left,” “right,” or “center” or all three at once but among a swath of issues—my hair’s set on fire every time I stick my head above the trench and into the trajectories of bombs and bullets of “Breaking News.” In some cases—most notably, Ukraine, Gaza, and gun …

CAR TALK ON THE WAY TO SECOND GRADE

DECEMBER 7, 2023 – Late last night after a pleasant day filled with numerous wonders, I watched 20 minutes worth of the fourth Republican Presidential Debate (so called). DeSantis and Ramaswamy managed to set my hair on fire, while two or three times Chris Christie made me cheer out loud when calling out his colleagues …

A POST NEARLY RUINED BY MADDOW AND CHENEY BUT SAVED BY LAUGHTER

DECEMBER 5, 2023 – Yesterday evening after scoring a sugar high from “doughnut-making” time with Grandma, our eight-year-old granddaughter was packed off for home. As Grandma herself then realized that her “supper” had featured . . . doughnuts with icing colored (by our granddaughter) in imitation of automotive fluid and over-adorned with “sprinkles.” If I …

HARDWIRED

MAY 27, 2023 – Recently, while I was hiking the hills of “Little Switzerland,” a golfer in his late 20s called out a greeting to me as he strode from his cart to the tee. An extrovert, he prompted me to respond similarly. I reciprocated and added a passing observation about the late-day improvement in …

A MATTER OF INTEREST

MAY 17, 2023 – Apart from chronic environmental issues bearing down on the entire planet, the most acute potential crisis facing the world right now is the effect of Congressional failure to raise (or better yet, abolish) the artificial cap on U.S. Government debt. This is one of the dumbest of all wholly avoidable, self-inflicted …

LOW EXPECTATIONS

MAY 10, 2023 – When you attend a major league baseball game, you expect to see accomplished baseball players pitching, hitting, running and fielding. You’d howl if the players missed every other catch and throw; or if a football team took to the field, played football and called it baseball. Likewise, you wouldn’t want your …

THE INDICTMENT IN THE AGE OF HYPERBOLE

MARCH 31, 2023 – Today, Lindsey Graham called the indictment of Duly Defeated “the most irresponsible act by a prosecutor in the history of the country.” Currently, 9,832 people serve as prosecutors in the United States, which has been formally constituted for 234 years. Against the backdrop of those numbers, “most irresponsible . . . …

TRUTH SOON TO HAVE ITS DAY IN COURT

MARCH 29, 2023 – Those of us who are repulsed by the Duly Defeated are quick to draw a direct connection between FoxProp’s viewership and Defeated’s political success within the Republican Party. I know (and respect) a number of people who are dedicated members of that viewership. I’m also well acquainted with their blanket rejection …

ROUGH SEAS AHEAD?

MARCH 25, 2023 – If you turn check the news these days—or any days—you’ll either investigate Canadian citizenship or follow my example and take matters into your own hands, as in . . . I’m going to be arrested on Tuesday. There, I’ve put it out there. (You can too.) The phone lines and website …

TERMINATING TOXIC TERMS

MARCH 22, 2023 – During my years working inside a large financial institution, we were subjected to a regular onslaught of new and improved terms that people slung around mostly to gain acceptance among other people doing likewise. When I encountered the latest lingo in management meetings I wanted to stand up and scream, “Can’t …

A DAY OF DISMAL SCIENCE

MARCH 10, 2023 – Today brought unsettling economic news, including the gathering storm clouds around “X Date”—the date when absent legislation increasing the debt ceiling, the federal government runs out of dough to pay its obligations as they come due. By consensus among economists of all stripes, the consequences of Congress not raising the federal …

BACK TO THE FUTURE

MARCH 3, 2023 – The latest news—except on FoxNews—is that Fox isn’t even pretending to be news. Correction: this isn’t news. Further correction: by an old-fashion definition of journalism, not much else that appears on cable news is . . . well, news reporting, as opposed to opinion. But a large distinction separates opinion channels …