This week the 2020 presidential election season formally begins with the first Democratic debates. Steadying infusions of comic relief will be required if we’re to survive the next 16 months. And there’s rarely a more reliable source of comedic relief than the Brits. Our country has become a laughingstock. Our executive branch, a convocation of […]
Hello?
Bungling a teachable moment
Ok, let’s agree that Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer accused of sexual assault or harassment by 87 women, appears to have behaved despicably and unlawfully. And let’s agree that educational institutions principally exist to dispense knowledge meant to prepare the young to cope in a world where they soon will be the deciders. Which brings […]
Your watchdogs don’t bark
“Elections have consequences.” — Mick Mulvaney, then-acting-director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, explaining why he zeroed out the consumer bureau’s budget request. When you take your child for a spin in a stroller or tuck your baby into a sleeper, you trust the stroller and sleeper are safe for children. When you take a bite of […]
Good news for the president
“We are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country.” — Donald Trump, 2019 State of the Union address One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons shows an exasperated father trying to cajole a reluctant, pajama-clad child to go to sleep. Lifting up the bedding so the child can peer beneath the bed, the […]
Here come the Democrats
This one’s not for you, Republicans. Please move along quietly. You’ve had your fair share. This one’s for Democrats, who are about to be bathed in barrels of ink long spilled, to such poor effect, on you. Revealing an unsuspected appetite for bedlam, Republicans have taken a wrecking ball to the Republic. Democrats promise to […]
Let’s burn more oil
“We strongly believe that no country should have to sacrifice their [sic] economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability.” – Wells Griffith, President Trump’s international energy and climate adviser, United Nations climate meeting, Poland Dec. 10, 2018 Here’s an idea for a New Year’s resolution: Burn more oil. It’s the economy, Stupid. […]
Voters earn a passing grade
Though Thanksgiving Day has come and gone, remain thankful for this: 47 percent of the age-eligible — not the registered — citizenry voted in this mid-term election. We’ve not seen turnout this high for a mid-term in 50 years. Moreover, these voters did the one thing that had to be done. They removed control of the U.S. House of […]
Slouching toward overshoot
First, Lisa Murkowski. The senior senator from Alaska merits our attention on two counts: She holds the lonely distinction of being the only Republican senator to oppose Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s appointment to the United States Supreme Court, and she chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Murkowski, who interrogated Kavanaugh privately, did not […]
Was democracy a mistake?
Last fall the local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship invited me to speak about coping with our dysfunctional democracy. My message to the Unitarians was, in essence, that the dysfunction is their own fault. The Founders knowingly took an unthinkable risk when they put the power to govern into the hands of the governed. It’s on us. […]
Let’s pretend
Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening. — Donald Trump in a July 2018 speech in Kansas. Let’s pretend, just for the sake of implausible argument, that a goodly portion of the nation is being consumed by fierce wildfires. By Aug. 17, 2018, say federal officials, 40,880 fires had […]
