Monthly Archives: November 2010

Statlier mansions yet unbuilt. –Robert M. Shelby, 11-26-10. [1106 txt wds]

Humans need to live in a more ethical and moral world than they seem able now to provide for themselves. Is that true? In tribal times, such as among precolumbian  American Indians, lying was unthinkable even to enemies. A tactical ruse might be used in a surprise raid. Individuals competed for prestige and status in […]

Politics beyond Right and Left! –Robert M. Shelby, 11-23-10. [1125 txt wds]

Inhumanity begins with ignoring what others think and feel. The next step is to cut yourself off from those you decide to despise, then demonize and attack them on every issue and conceivable point of difference. Like paid cadres who have a stake in misdirecting and disinforming the public, some on the far side of […]

Political Education? –Robert M. Shelby, 11-17/12-14-10 [1057 txt wds]

Sad comedy often attends reading newspaper Letters to the Editor. Some who contribute their confusion lack the knowledge of basic political terms we expect of middle-schoolers. They write like empty vessels filled with noisy rubbish. One recent contributor (11-16-10) believes the Nazis were leftists, no doubt because the word “Socialism” appears in National Socialism. He […]

Bifurcation Fractures Minds –Robert M. Shelby, 11-8-10. [1215 txt wds]

1 Recent conflict in Benicia Herald’s Forum between two contrasting, Protestant views of Catholic Christians would be amusing did it not reveal the distance between religious minds and good reasoning based on indisputable fact. Broadly considered, all three “Book Religions” and their contentious offshoots share the same difficulty: Judism, Christianity and Islam. Alas, none can […]

Imperfect Ideas. –Robert M. Shelby, 11-3-10. [1212 txt wds]

In today’s Benicia Herald Forum (11-3-10), Jim Pugh’s featured “Social Democracy?” is well worth careful reading. I sincerely admire the way he embraces his topic and works it out into print. We don’t get enough of this sort of concision. There is no comparison between his last feature and this one. Here he gets to […]

Dots connect as smoke clears! –Robert M. Shelby, 11-1-10. [211 txt wds]

For several weeks I’ve exchanged sporadic emails with a local real-estate & loan agent. His Tea Party advocacy has been astonishingly intense. He has vacillated erratically between defense and attack modes. It scrambled both his presentation and grammar to the point of seeming at times unhinged. At last, maybe I understand why he seemed to […]

Why GOP will lose all in 2012. –Robert M. Shelby, 11-1-10. [408 txt wds]

Whatever happens (or will have happened) on November 2nd, Republicans will lose nearly everything in the 2012 election. Why? They have shown unmistakably dishonest strategy, bad character and disloyalty to the American public. Basing their 2010 tactics on whipping up anger, resentment, disappointment, impatience and childish gullibility of ordinary people into a froth skimmed off […]

The Death-Trap of False Competence –Robert M. Shelby, 10-31-10. [526 txt wds]

Whichever way this election goes, my first effort afterward will be to forgive everybody for everything they have thought or done incorrectly. It won’t be hard to do. No one on either side can help how they came up from their roots to whatever they became or failed to become. Think of our greatest humans […]