Another merchant has lost my business, this time a barber. And it’s unfortunate, because my hair and I are in the market. I’d love to hand someone money to manage what fiber remains on my head, but I won’t sit there and endure a forced march through the brain of Glenn Beck in the process.…
DetailsDisregard the trail of blood they’ve wrought, the cumulative protection falsely assigned them. Say this much about guns: At least they allow certain folks to get specific about “freedom.” Surely I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Those who get most melodic about “freedom” trail off into mumbles on lyrics…
DetailsThe crazed, blazing rhetoric gets confusing. Barack Obama has done too little about the economy. Obama has done too much. Two opposing critiques, same set of mouths. As in: Obama is pro-big government and anti-business. Oh, but of course, he’s in the pocket of big business. (You know, BP.) …
DetailsOil seeped from a hole in the Gulf’s heart. State budgets continued to bleed from the worst economy since food riots. The Afghan military ordeal officially became Vietnam-long. And what was America talking about? Football. And not even the World Cup brand, which at least was about to be played. America was…
DetailsWe don’t know this to be unprecedented. The girls generally have demurred in the public eye. But one of the Bush twins now stands guilty of committing truth. Or heresy, to those who think health care is a privilege of being born on a proper plot of ground. Those people also will…
DetailsThe children are out, frolicking in the green — summer stretched before them like the promise of youth. And some people want to shut them indoors again, want to batten the hatches, pass out more sheets with bubbles, return them to their crouches. Those people would include the nation’s top…
DetailsThe Internet thread contained that familiar aroma of pasture patties. Did you know, it said, that a mosque was going up at the very spot of the 9/11 attacks? Well, not exactly. This was just the first of a string of anti-Muslim, anti-Barack (Hussein) Obama fallacies, or at least just enough fact mixed…
DetailsMy friend had a life-threatening problem with his workplace. He was processing film much of every work day and had acquired a serious wheeze. The room in which he worked had no ventilation for noxious fumes. He came to me. I suggested he contact the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. All it took was…
DetailsSpring brings two distinct send-offs in every school district. One has school colors, school songs, beaming faces. The other is this: the venting of students with hunched shoulders and vacant expressions. One rite — commencement — signifies we did something right. The second send-off signifies that we didn’t. It is what…
DetailsUltimately, it’s all about dollars, don’t you know. The financial press reports that BP has lost $32 billion in stock market value, oozing away in liquid blackness. Previously identified with green-ness as oil companies go, BP now models a shroud of tar. Efforts to contain the mother of all oil spills in…
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