December 29, 2012

Conversation: A Word Signifying Nothing

The favorite word of journalists and politicians these days is the word conversation. Now, when I was a kid in the 50s, conversation typically meant a pleasant exchange between people in which there was nothing discussed that would lead to acrimony o...

September 18, 2012

The 2012 Presidential Election Campaign and Decision

How can voters decide between the two candidates, one of whom will be not only president, but also leader of the free world? The 2012 presidential election campaign is almost over except for the debates, which are really beauty contests.  Unfort...

July 14, 2012

Obama's War on Children

With the Democrats ramping up their rhetoric about the Republicans' war on women, their war on the poor, their war on people of color, and their war on seniors (promoted as their attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security), is the presiden...

March 25, 2012

A Racism Hardly Mentioned

Why is anti-Semitism, the racism leveled at Jews, hardly mentioned?  We hear and read all the time about racism against African-Americans or Latinos, but racism against Jews is hardly ever exposed by the media or castigated as it should be. It w...

February 8, 2012

I Will Pay My "Fair Share" of Taxes When...

Our president throws out the phrase "fair share" pretty often -- on his campaign stops throughout the country, in his State of the Union campaign speech, you name it.  But the president needs to understand that fairness is a subjective thing. ...

December 17, 2011

Army MEDEVAC Choppers Travesty

Why are MEDEVAC helicopters (commonly called "Dustoffs"), carrying our wounded troops to safety in Afghanistan, being put at enormous risk by the U.S. Army?  Why is the Geneva Convention cited by them for their actions?  With every second p...

December 11, 2011

Is Colin Powell a Republican?

Why did Colin Powell recently trash the Tea Party?  Isn't he a Republican who wants to see his party do well in the upcoming election?  Or is he someone else?  His comments about compromise regarding the selection of the Republican nom...

November 19, 2011

The Party's Over

As that famous philosopher and grammarian, Professor Henry Higgins, bellowed in the musical My Fair Lady when he heard that Eliza Doolittle was going to marry Freddy Einsford-Hill: "It's doomed before they even take the vow."  That exclamation p...

November 11, 2011

Affirmative Action for Our Troops

It is the veteran, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion. It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the veteran, not the ca...

November 5, 2011

Tired of Class Warfare Yet?

More than two decades ago -- 1987, to be exact -- there was a program on PBS conceived and hosted by Fred Friendly, the legendary CBS TV producer of Edward R. Murrow's shows and former president of CBS News.  It was called Ethics in America: Pub...

October 8, 2011

The Republican 'Vision Thing'

Do the top Republican challengers to Barack Obama in 2012 have a vision of where the country should be heading in 2013 and beyond?  Does this "vision thing" matter? On January 26, 1987, in a Time magazine article entitled "Where Is the Real Ge...

September 19, 2011

Watergate Times Three

You think Richard Nixon's presidency was the worst scandal ever?  Well, so far, anyway. It all started with a tape holding a door open at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., discovered by a security guard 39 years ago on June 17, 1972. ...