Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Even more than democracy, celebrity defines Western culture. In fact, my dismay over people either worshiping living celebrities or deifying dead ones moved me way back in 2005 to write “Celebrity-Obsessed World Has Made Actors and Rock Stars the Statesmen of Our Times.” This is why I trust you’ll deem it meaningful whenever I join… Read more.
See calendar for details on early voting state by state here … (In states where there is no early in-person voting, get your ballot, vote, and mail it in at the earliest possible opportunity.) I urge voters in reputed “swing states” (namely Arizona, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin)… Read more.
And yes, the irony cannot be lost even on Putin that protests are unmasking him at a time when a pandemic is masking everyone else. The following excerpt from the August 29 edition of The Economist explains his unmasking: _________ NOTHING IS AS inspiring as seeing people take to the streets to demand their freedoms… Read more.
No, I couldn’t sleep … Much is being made of NBA player LeBron James tweeting: FU*K THIS MAN!!!! WE DEMAND CHANGE. SICK OF IT — LeBron James (@KingJames) August 26, 2020 More evocative, though, was NBA coach Doc Rivers weeping: All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them [at the Republican National Convention]… Read more.
Police responded with force overnight as demonstrators torched cars and set buildings ablaze in Kenosha, Wisconsin, demanding justice in the shooting of Jacob Blake. … Police shot Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, at close range Sunday evening as he tried to enter an SUV. In the vehicle were his 3-, 5- and 8-year-old sons, family… Read more.
Surely the wonder is that California always has so much land to burn. And, is it just me, or do you also wonder why people continually tempt Mother Nature by building homes where she clearly intended only trees to grow…? Indeed, I don’t think she could have made her contempt any clearer than when she… Read more.
On the eve of the Republican National Convention where President Trump hopes to revive his flagging political fortunes, he will announce the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for covid-19, a treatment that already has been given to more than 70,000 patients, according to officials familiar with the decision. (The Washington Post, August 23, 2020) Alas,… Read more.
In June, when Mary Trump began teasing her tell-all about President Trump, I was in the vanguard of those urging readers to gobble it up. I refer you to “Two Trump Tell-Alls: Boycott Bolton’s! But There’s Something About Mary’s…,” on June 22. Then, when it became an instant bestseller, I celebrated. I refer you to… Read more.
The union representing New York City’s public-school teachers said its members would not return to classrooms next month unless the city met their health and safety demands – including testing all students and staff for that coronavirus and ensuring all schools have a nurse. The announcement from the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which represents… Read more.
I realized many party conventions ago that conventional wisdom about them never fails. That wisdom holds that they have little to no impact on which party wins the General Election. And this has been the case time and again. Which is why I find watching party conventions akin to drinking a vanilla milkshake to soothe… Read more.
