During early decades after our nation’s founding, Christian morality and the “Protestant work ethic” tempered commercial competition and assured a measure of concern for others’ well-being and livelihood. The worst potentials of unrestrained Capitalism began to be felt only after the Civil War, and then increasingly until labor movements, women’s suffrage and the advent of […]
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was announced new Pope tonight, 3-13-13, at 8:15 p.m. in the Vatican at Rome, to massive cheering and the playing of bands. Taking the name, Francis the First, or Pope Francisco, he spoke plainly and directly with humility and kindness between traditional prayers. The selection of a Cardinal from Buenos Aires, Argentina, […]
Listening to Senator Elizabeth Warren grill the bank regulators about their deficiencies in bringing big banking malefactors to trial and punishment, it becomes clear that the criminals are running the country by running away from justice with tiny slaps on the wrist and trampling over us. You would think the country existed only for their […]
Underlying and encompassing the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol Dome in Washington D. C. and the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, is an earlier, statuesque figure of a woman, variously shown in graphic art and on coins, as representing the United States. Her name is unknown by many people and forgotten by […]
The state of the Union may be strong. Clearly it is healthier than the condition of this country’s unions which grow increasingly imperiled. All considered, the state of the United States is ragged and schizophrenic as are most nations today. Our situation mirrors that of the European Union fairly closely, where a similar struggle goes […]
The late vice president Spiro Agnew (1918-1996), unfortunately, left as his most memorable legacy only a phrase, which he, as Nixon’s running mate and first-term vice president, applied to media persons and Democratic politicians critical of Nixon’s policies and actions. The phrase was, “nattering nabobs of negativity.” It is interesting to see how such partisan […]
I never owned a firearm, but don’t you dare take my gun away from me. My masculine physiology can’t bear a baby, but don’t you dare make me carry it to full term if I want to abort for being unfit to mother it or too poor to raise it, or if birthing will kill […]
How we learn goodness and can still throw it away. Ah, the wonderful days of yesteryore, the times before most people living today were born. I remember saluting the flag, first thing in the morning at school. Often, a short prayer was recited or an old-maid teacher read a verse from the bible. How salutary […]
Right-wing insistence on smaller government would be more consistent were it coupled with a drive to breed humans back to smaller brains than they now have. They might have fewer and less discordant opinions. Studies indicate modern humans carry from 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal genes, maybe from times of interbreeding after 32,000 years ago […]
Whatever the ambiguous word “Capitalism” actually means, it is given way too much credit for socio-economic creativity and productiveness. Capitalism is first of all an ISM, a set of revered notions by which some people understand and explain their version of the world we inhabit. Versions of the world are abstract. They “envision” the world […]