Multiple-choice decisions can be intimidating. A panoply of options forces you to think about stuff, and that’s tiring. How much easier, instead, to make a simple call between “A” and “B,” between the favorite and the underdog, between chicken and beef, Staples and Office Depot. Same deal with our current version of democracy. After all...
Since we’ve collectively agreed that guns are a necessary part of American life, we’re beginning to collectively accept that a certain number of us, the unfortunate ones, child scholars, must die. It’s the price we pay for the privilege of owning firearms and the bullets they propel. Whether or not you think semi-regular campus/church/Cineplex/school-shootings are...
Anything’s possible. And that’s what’s so great about being alive at this particularly time in human history, when we’ve advanced so far beyond our ancestors that their antiquated ways of thinking seem mildly pathetic and our fresh, new ways of thinking are bravely innovative. Evolution has brought us far from our monkey origins. Now we...
Dear Person Who Shall Remain Nameless in Order to Preserve Whatever Shred of Credibility You Might Still Have Among Your Listeners, Although for years you’ve railed against big banks, multi-national corporations, and the rich (mostly white) folks who benefit from quotidian financial chicanery, when a candidate for President of the United States, Bernie Sanders, recently...
An offshoot of the Occupy movement, Strike Debt is helping defaulters retire debt for pennies on the dollar. They’re also helping the 99% understand that the design of our financial system is built to keep masses of workers indentured to creditors. In Strike Debt’s easy-to-understand book, “The Debt Resistor’s Operations Manual,” the entire concept of who owes...
Contrary to what Donald J. Trump and his followers claim to believe, immigration is not what’s keeping America from being great (again). If folks who live in Iowa and New Hampshire who are convinced that our national safety rests on the construction of a giant wall between Mexico and what used to be Mexico –...
Here’s a list of several countries: Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, and the United Arab Emirates. What do they all have in common – besides being among the worst human rights offenders on the planet? Their enthusiastic embrace of American values? Their love of liberty and freedom of speech? Here’s a list of several financial institutions:...
How low has the United States of America sunk? We’re in the process of negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. Yes, negotiating, like, talking with. Iran. Yes, that Iran. The country that once held Americans hostage. The country that fought against Saddam Hussein back when we liked him. The country that arms Hezbollah and Hamas....
Monday is Memorial Day. Automobile races and ball games happen, sure. But Memorial Day is mostly set aside for solemn remembrance of the brave heroes who lost (gave?) their lives to the United States military so the rest of us can enjoy all the benefits of being citizens of the greatest country on Earth. We...
Some of our more famously progressive friends — those who self-identify as conscious, liberal, rights-minded pacifists, including “smartest man in the world” comedian Greg Proops – are presently in a political pickle. They’ve pre-declared themselves as Soldiers for Hillary, despite so many stains upon her record you might be persuaded that she was a key...
You may have been distracted by more important Current Events — like something rude our President said, or a lie that was uttered on a news entertainment program. Not long ago our elected representatives in Congress and the White House passed a bill authorizing $717 billion in what’s comically called “defense” spending. This massive payday for people who work in the killing business included many billions to upgrade our aging nuclear arsenal, which already contains…
Writer, poet, artist, improviser, lyricist, former television personality, and generally decent person.
We recently encountered the 1981 anthology “The Mind’s I,” by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, and we’re pretty sure our brain will never be quite the same. The collection contains “fantasies and reflections on self and soul” expressed in essays, stories and one-act plays that work as literary thought experiments meant to refine (define?) our understanding...
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