Questions and comments about policy and politics, primarily focused on the states but touching on international issues as well….from an interested bystander.
Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news about the new do-it-yourself journalism. The good news? Theoretically, anyone with a keyboard and a modem can enter the global conversation. The bad news? At least in American journalism, a bunch of people who don’t know English very well are writing their heads off, producing a slew of words without … More Words Gone Wrong: 8 Stupid Things Journalists Write
After finishing the MLK march today, I walked back down MLK Avenue toward the church we had started from. There were still some people along the road, groups of women and children mostly, some with cloths spread out and picnic fixings on the streetside for the kids. The holiday atmosphere still prevailed, with strangers greeting … More Being the Ram in the Bush
Having just done a review of American history with one of my classes, I found this article by a Boston College historian drawing a comparison between the Republican Party of 2015 and the Democratic Party of 1860 to be interesting. This historian reminds us that John C. Breckenridge, the pro-slavery candidate of the Democrats of that … More Parallels in Radicalism
“What is the cause of racism?” one of my English-language students recently asked. Abdullah is from Iraq, a country itself riven with divisions. But the virulence and persistence of America’s problems between white and black Americans is dumbfounding to him and to the rest of my class, and I struggle to explain it. I have chosen … More Explaining America on Race
While I have been more amused than concerned about the machinations of the butt-end of the House of Representatives, this article about the various groups that just successfully deposed Boehner, aborted McCarthy, and are eager to stage a coup that will shrinkwrap the Federal government to the size of a package of hotdogs has me … More The Gang
The enigmatic children’s rhyme “Ring around the rosie” may be about smallpox in the 16th century, but then again, it could just as easily be about any other existential threat to society or humanity. For the American Empire, that ol’ end-of-the-world feeling is coming around. The fires are burning in the US House of Representatives today.
From Steve Wilkerson comes THIS ARTICLE about the fear here in the US that has effectively slammed the doors on hundreds of thousands of desperate Syrians trying to escape slaughter by their government. We refused to accept large numbers of Jews in the ’30s and ’40s, too, and look what happened. We count the Holocaust as … More Fear. Terror. Panic. Cold Shivers. Cold suspicion……..Hate.
Just remarkable. The Republican House caucus is so divided that they can’t find a Speaker. They’re looking for “Somebody, anybody,” according to the National Review. Members are in tears. I’d like to say that Congressional Republicans have done this to themselves, but really it is the Republican base that has torched the Republican Party. With … More Seriously? Crying?
[Update} And there’s more: more So today, after a withering shower of acid criticism for telling the truth about the Benghazi witch-hunt, whose target appears always to have been Hillary 2016, Kevin McCarthy acknowledged today that he doesn’t have the votes to become the speaker of the House. The only candidates that are now in … More Mainline GOPers in the House must be shivering in their boots…
Em Turner Chitty 