What to do about Tea Party deadheads like Robert Livesay of Benicia? Nothing. It may have been too late by the time he entered high school. Whatever courses he took, he never learned how to make good use of that thing he supposes is a mind. Learning how to think should precede getting indoctrinated in […]
If you want to learn the truth about the real-estate debacle, otherwise known as the massive, home-loan and mortgage robbery scandal, go to the following link: <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/post_1115_b_772820.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=102510&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily+Brief> If you feel concerned that the Citizens United decision by the USSC and the noxious behavior of the Chamber of Commerce, et al. can drive American democracy to […]
No “loyal opposition” remains. Republican Senatorial leader, Mitch McConnell, declares his single, most important job now will be to defeat any measure desired by President Obama and all Democratic proposals. This is no longer political opposition. This is no longer contributing balance to the legislative process. This is subversion of governance amounting as near to […]
In the online version of The Chronicle Review of Education, Corey Robin (10-24-10, in “Why Conservatives Love War”) reminds us, this year is the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno, et al. Five years later in 1955, Richard Hofstadter added support to their thesis in “The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt,” describing […]
A friend of mine reports attending a recent “Tea Party Patriots” meeting in Benicia where booklets were distributed to attendees outlining ways for Christians to get their preachments taught in public schools. I’ll find out more. If true, it strengthens (1) my view that fixed religious belief in notions not verified by science endangers sanity and […]
Out here at forty thousand miles from earth’s troubled surface and turbulent, warming atmosphere we are well beyond the electronic flux of the Van Allen belts, but only one-sixth of the distance out to the moon’s mean, orbital path. Let’s go on out to Jupiter’s biggest moon, Ganymede, and orbit for a look back at […]
In 1952 during my high-junior or low-senior semester at U.C., Berkeley, a few of us were sitting in our residence association lounge one evening when two or three young fellows not of our group, visiting maybe from “fraternity row,” pulled the conversation around to one guy’s argument favoring the morality of accumulated, family wealth. He […]
Very few politicians in our world have been major poets, but some of our best and worst poets are or have been lawyers. Wallace Stevens worked lifelong as legal VP for Hartford Accident and Indemnity but left a body of work loved, pondered over and written about continuously to this day. A course or two […]
In his 1988 State of the Union address, President Reagan said: “. . . can they [the pro-choice liberals] deny that now medical evidence confirms the unborn child is a living, human being entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?” Like a stage magician, hatless Reagan fished this paper rabbit straight out of […]
Dennis Lund (Benicia Herald Forum, 10-17-10) is so slick he can use honest reporting of an interview with Rep. George Miller to work covert purpose. He makes himself look fair while knowing full well his Republican readers will view Miller’s statements through screens of reactionary bias that convert them to the cynical stuff they expect […]