Because the only war we should be fighting is against Climate Change and our own selfishness and greed. Because the two Money Parties — Republican and Democrat — are cancers on our republic. Because bloodless, consensual revolutions are always better than bloody ones. Because “family values” and the “rights of the unborn” should include future...
What if – and we know this is far-fetched and vaguely absurd – what if every person in Los Angeles who has the means and the space were to “adopt” a non-violent, non-alcoholic, perfectly harmless homeless person, giving that man or woman (or family?) a place to sleep and bathe that’s not a freeway underpass? What...
We live in an oligarchy and call it “democracy.” We organize ourselves in a gaffed system of corrupted socialism and call it “free market capitalism.” We send poorly educated victims overseas to die for our war-making industry and call them “heroes.” So it probably should come as no surprise that one day a year we “celebrate”...
It’s not a fun read. Most will avert their eyes, as we tend to do when confronted with imagery and information that contradicts the comforting stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we stand for. But Andrew Cockburn’s “Acceptable Losses” article in Harper’s magazine should be mandatory for all American citizens, especially those...
Did you hear the latest hippie rant from Bernie Sanders? Or maybe it was Jill Stein. This is what was said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed....
You’ve seen the trending hashtags: #NotMeUs; #StrongerTogether; #WeAreOne. They’re all useful shorthand for complex ideas. On a “normal” day of “normal” news, the concept of Unity strikes most of us as reasonable, a thoroughly un-controversial acclamation of cooperation and fellowship. Great. Sure. What happens, though, when someone drives a truck into dozens of families? What...
If you have friends who don’t quite understand why wealth inequality and political corruption is bad for America (and the rest of the planet), “Noam Chomsky: Requiem for the American Dream,” is the film to recommend. The beloved intellectual and lifelong critic of war-making and corporatism, Chomsky, in his late-80s, remains as incisive and refreshingly...
Go to her official site. Right there on the Home Page: “I may not know how to pick husbands, but I know what’s best for our country! I think she’s being funny? #irony Facts: The marriages. She’s had three of them, so far. None of these husbands has lasted longer than two years. Kept first-husband’s...
Seven years after original publication, “Eating Animals,” by the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, remains unmatched in providing a provocative, comprehensive and deeply affecting portrait of the carnivore’s dilemma. Employing writing techniques gleaned from memoir, investigative journalism, philosophy, science and editorial essay, Foer systematically and compellingly builds his argument — that there is no moral rationale...
Disease works insidiously, hiding out in hard-to-see places. A badly compromised body often looks normal on the outside, especially if the illness is concentrated in one area. Some systems and organs continue to function perfectly while another organ or system fails. We don’t know disease is lurking in our genes or bowels or lungs until...
A couple of years ago, my wife was robbed at gunpoint in our driveway. It was a weekday evening; it was dark. Very dark. For reasons no one in City government has ever explained to me and my neighbors, for as long as I’ve lived here (27 years) our residential street is the only one in the area without night-time street-lights.
Criminals who steal wallets and cell phones, the police explained as they wrote up…
Writer, poet, artist, improviser, lyricist, former television personality, and generally decent person.
The ethereal jazz singer Jeanne Lee would have been 80 this year. A re-release of her duet album with New England Conservatory titan Ran Blake, “The Newest Sound You Never Heard,” more than 40 years after its 1966-7 recording, reveals a thoroughly modern singer unafraid to sound like no one but herself. This vocal individuality...
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