At first glance, nothing justified the remake of Footloose. Then again, if we examine the political landscape, whether the issue is dancing or this nation acting like an adult on the world scene, we all need to be warned of the price of provincialism. Know without a doubt that parochialism and regression are…
DetailsIt may be historically inaccurate to say that the 112th U.S. Congress is on track to do less than any Congress in history. But, let’s face it. Less than zero is a bar under which not even a snake could slither. When John Boehner became U.S. House speaker last January, he…
DetailsHere’s what’s amazing about events in New York City, and Austin, and Denver, and Miami, and 62 other locations so far. We were thinking that young people were off soaking their brains in social media ooze — overly expressive chipmunks, angry birds, double rainbows. Instead, what do you know? They were paying attention to stuff…
DetailsHere’s what’s amazing about events in New York City, and Austin, and Denver, and Miami, and 62 other locations so far. We were thinking that young people were off soaking their brains in social media ooze — overly expressive chipmunks, angry birds, double rainbows. Instead, what do you know? They were paying attention to stuff…
DetailsHey, we get it. The state of Arizona pleads almost frantically on its “Build the Border Fence” web site that walls work. Take the triple-layer fence America’s tax dollars built to buffet the southern flank of Yuma, Ariz., under the Bush administration. The state calls it “extraordinarily successful,” thwarting “95 percent of illegal crossings in…
DetailsA few years ago back in peacetime — yes, way back then — I jokingly wrote that we needed a war to distract policy makers from their chronic top-down meddling in public schools. George W. Bush had just ascended to the presidency. His flight-deck mission then: to become the nation’s school superintendent. After all, he’d…
DetailsWacky, bewitching Michele Bachmann, whose candidacy is melting, melting, actually has offered something of substance to voters just before she becomes a vapor. She’s called the hand that has suddenly doused her campaign with her own tea-steeped brew, the hand of Rick Perry. So doing, she's made a very important point. …
DetailsDo the geese talk all the way? It’s work enough — winging from Canada’s marshes to America’s heartland — without also flapping one’s bill nonstop. That appears to be the case, however. All I know is that when the Canada geese are over my head in in Colorado, south-bound now, they…
DetailsIt’s a dirty shame that the Pew Research Center, in seeking a head count of extremism among Muslims in the United States, didn’t seek the same of extreme Christians. You might have noticed the story — the polling organization, at 10 years post-9/11, getting a sense of what American Muslims are thinking. …
DetailsThis is the way the world works — at least our corner of it. In 2006, drug giant Pfizer faced an embarrassing controversy, only not about what it was doing that was truly disgraceful. Red faces were in bloom over a series of TV and newspaper ads touting cholesterol-lowering drug…
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