With elections looming this week, it seems as good a time as ever to revisit the badly misunderstood concept of Vote Wasting. The standard lie, perniciously attractive to uncritical thinkers, is: When you vote for someone who “can’t win,” someone from, say, the Green Party, you’re wasting your vote. Therefore, the flawed reasoning goes, one should...
When your country’s government seems to be controlled by characters from professional wrestling competing in a “loser retires” bout, it’s easy to ascertain villainy in every unfair maneuver. The people in the Trump Administration: bad guys. Heels. They cheat. They lie. They’ll do anything to win. Who are the (baby) faces in this charade? Democrats,...
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...
Four years ago, that notoriously smart egg Mrs. Konik voted for Jill Stein. This election cycle, we’re catching up with her prescience and good sense. We’re voting Green. Enthusiastically. Casting our ballot for someone whose values are closely aligned with ours — as opposed to the lesser of two corrupt charlatans intent on making war...
The grave necessity of Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker’s book, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer–and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, was never clearer than the 2012 elections, in which citizens were presented with a “choice” between two competitie sub-brands of The Money Party monopoly. If you’re pro-war, pro-assassination, pro-bribery and...
CLIMATE STRIKE WEEK at MICHAELKONIK.com, 9-15-21 In the days preceding the storm of the century, two candidates running for President of the United States strenuously assured voters that they would pump more crude, frack more natural gas, and burn more coal than the other guy. Whether or not an energy policy built on a fossil-fuel...
Right. Of course. We get it. Who has time to read? Who has time to read newspapers? Unemployed stoners, for one. We have time to read newspapers – and periodicals and books, as well as all the other stuff that passes for reading these days. We have time to read, and think, and try to...
So much for stereotypes! Apparently one can be an elected official in Utah without being a reactionary Mormon. Meet Carl Ross Rocky Anderson, former mayor of Salt Lake City and candidate for President of the United States, running on the newly formed Justice Party ticket. His views align consistently with the editorial board here at MK.com —...
This Tuesday (October 23) there’ll be a fourth Presidential Debate held at the Chicago Hilton and moderated by wizened celebrity interlocutor Larry King. Didn’t hear about it? That’s because it’s not being broadcast on any television network – the debate is being streamed on the Internet – and neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama will...
Friends are fickle. Family is unreliable. But shopping – now that’s something we can all count on to raise our collective Holiday Spirit. This was the primary message of hope we heard during Thanksgiving, which has gradually morphed into a two-day bacchanal. (Day One, Thanksgiving Thursday, features food and football. Day Two, Black Friday, features...
Hope RekindledThis past week has given us more hope for our diseased republic than any other time in 50+ years of paying attention. Observing and participating in a long-overdue peaceful uprising, occupying the streets, feeling the righteous energy of people of all ages, colors, faiths, and wealth (or lack thereof), has…
Clarinetist Glenn Dickson, master of klezmer, has made a solo recording, “Wider Than the Sky,” that’s been on perpetual repeat at our home office. Using over-dubs and electronic digital effects, Dickson fills the aural soundscape with a rich melange of chordal textures supporting the melody. His celebrated virtuosity is subsumed here to long, elegiac musical...
