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Monthly Archives: November 2013

Nothing succeeds like failure

Friday, November 29, 2013

Who can ask for a better way to make a living than one in which repeated failure only improves your reputation? That's the world of Washington “experts” and pundits, today's example being one Michael O'Hanlon, who, in today's Times shares his expertise once again, explaining why the U.S. government should ignore Hamid Karzai's threats and […]

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Good news for the week

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Each of our political parties is under attack. The Republicans are besieged by ever growing numbers of voters of all hues, but most frighteningly, for them, those of a brownish hue. They have responded to the attack in a most simple and direct fashion: by depriving those voters of the right to vote. They have […]

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Stand with the nurses

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Our local hospital, Lawrence & Memorial has, of late shown signs of going down the path of corporatism. Part of that process is the Walmartization of its workforce. After all, if you pay your nurses a decent wage, it's that much harder for the hospital execs to get those inflated salaries (over $700k for the […]

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What religion is Exxon?

Monday, November 25, 2013

We truly have come to a strange place in this country, even jurisprudentially speaking. In this morning's Times we read that the court is likely to take up the question of the “Religious Rights of Corporations”. It seems that the Hobby Lobby objects to providing mandated health insurance benefits to its employees. We seem to […]

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Scum

Saturday, November 23, 2013

There is really no other word for the people who run American corporations. Some of the European corporations are at least throwing some crumbs at the survivors of the Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh, but according to the Times American corporations, including Walmart and Sears, are refusing to donate a plug nickel. A handful of […]

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It’s about time!

Thursday, November 21, 2013

At long last, the Democrats in the Senate have ended the filibuster abuse by the Republicans. This is truly good news, making it easy to meet my weekly obligation to recount such things, and this time I doubt that I'll be limning the good news with cynicism, though first by way of aside: “Shame on […]

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Hope, though not much, for the South

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Recently there was a special election for a Louisiana congressional seat. The results were somewhat shocking: a Republican who supported the expanded Medicaid benefits in Obamacare beat his mainstream (the “tea party” is now mainstream ) Republican opponent. (The district in question is scarlet red) It appears that even dumb poor Southern white people actually […]

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Not fiction

Monday, November 18, 2013

There truly are things going on in this country that you simply couldn't make up. If this were in a work of fiction, would you believe it? Food donation boxes are a common holiday-season sight in supermarkets. Boxes for store employees to donate food for other store employees in need? That's more of a surprise, […]

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Get off of my lawn!

Sunday, November 17, 2013

I am feeling sort of crotchety today, so I'm going to vent a bit, as is my right as a near geezer. (I will never actually admit reaching that milestone, but I confess to getting ever nearer.) First, let me direct my fire at the Democrats. I've been blogging since 2005 and I'm really tired […]

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Inequality for All

Thursday, November 14, 2013

I got an email this morning from one Aldo Baker, of Democracy for America, who asks that I spread the word about the attack on Social Security and the true facts, which he claims you can see here. I’ll confine myself to one aspect of the current assault on Social Security: the push to impose […]

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