by the Night Writer Peter Bell, Chairman of the Metropolitan Council, had a commentary on the Strib’s editorial pages today with the headline “America Needs a Little Less Cynicism”. Being kind of a cynical person myself when it comes to the appointed bureaucrats of the Met Council, I expected some hand-wringing about how the toxic [...]
In general I’m not a big fan of disruptive protests, seeing them as typically producing more inconvenience than enlightenment. That said, I’ve taken an untypical satisfaction in the multiple protests around the world seeking to shame China in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. While I’d personally feel more of a connection if the protesters [...]
Twenty years ago this month the Twins won their first World Series and my wife and I were married. Stellar events to be sure, but in the last week has been a lot said and written about Black Monday — October 19, 1987 — the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 500 [...]
Courtesy of The Writer’s Almanac, yesterday was the birthday of poet e.e. cummings, known for his unusual punctuation and his way of arranging words and spaces on a page to create a rhythm for his poems. Less well known is that he was also frozen out by the literary and academic communities for being “politically [...]
Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not, it is wise to affect ignorance. — Baltasar Gracian “Truthiness” is the recent colloquialism that describes things that are thought to be facts merely because they “feel” right. The word is new, but the phenomenon isn’t, as reflected by the Mark Twain [...]
Fairness Doctrine? What a bunch of pikers. Those who are serious about bringing back the so-called Fairness Doctrine are either flat-out ignorant or disingenous about their real motives (place your bets). To find out what they really mean, simply look to Venezuela where the darling of the American left, Hugo Chávez, has already nationalized the [...]
There appears to be a booming market in 9/11 conspiracy theories, especially among academics nestled into their home-made Skinner boxes, toggling their BDS* gratification buttons. Meanwhile a much more brazen attack on free-speech is carried out by Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Byron Dorgan and Dick Durbin (leaders of the Party-Not-In-Power) who not only threatened the [...]
Oppressed by your corrupt, immoral, lying government? Angered by intolerance, prejudice and hostile legislators? Then take it to the streets where your passion and cause can be covered by the media for all the world to see! As long as it’s the right (or left) passion and cause, of course. In the days where people [...]
