With the amount of time, energy and big bucks spent on the battleground states, the rest of the nation is taken for granted and thus devalued. Had I remained a resident of New York my vote wouldn’t be worth two cents because of my loyalty to the Democratic party. Here in Florida it must be worth about five bucks because of the fifty dollar swing voters down here that will decide who is the majority. Voting has become the return of the prodigal son of politics. Politicians pander to the base on...

I think it is time to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, but redeploying some of them to Afghanistan where they are needed to protect the women voters in their coming election and to rout the warlords. This move would send a dual message to Al Qaeda and the Iraqis. The latter will intuit that the U.S. is not going to babysit them much longer and the former will grow wary that the U.S. is intent on crushing its sanctuaries. Pakistan, as well, will be put on notice that they can no longer dilly...

A compelling argument for the validity of the separation of multiculturalism and state — and religion for that matter — lies with Quebec’s current predicament. What with its division of language and culture between English and French languages, Anglican and Catholic, Canada’s history has always been naturally multicultural. According to a Times article, the province of Ontario passed a law permitting religious authorities, under limitations, to arbitrate civil liberties if the citizen was w...

In post 9/11 climate it is difficult to espouse a gentle strategy toward Islam. From the Attorney General’s profiling to the “bring it on” challenge the consensus seems that only through “bad cop” imagery and the leviathan of military prowess will the civilized world defends itself from the sinister ilk of Al Qaeda. Yet it is clear that a religious war-environment will not solve the terrorist threat, nor will theological warfare from either side do anything other than add fuel to the fire. Th...

Once Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer headlines — wishful thinking perhaps — the US should end the state of “war” on terrorism so that it is not relegated to the meaningless equation of wars on drugs, poverty, and AIDS. The undeniable fact is that terrorism is an unspeakable crime against humanity by unscrupulous ideologists and murderous followers who operate under the pretense of cause célèbre even though it has nothing whatever to do with the subversion of a government. For instance, i...

The US borrows ten billion dollars every work week from foreign countries. What does this say about the health of this economy? Too much discussion about the extremism of liberals and conservatives tends to give the impression that the vast majority is either one or the other. The fact is the majority is neither. The problem with “regime change” as US policy since Iraq, is that it is now interpreted as military intervention rather than aggressive diplomacy. The average fellow who is f...

The US borrows ten billion dollars every work week from foreign countries. What does this say about the health of this economy? Too much discussion about the extremism of liberals and conservatives tends to give the impression that the vast majority is either one or the other. The fact is the majority is neither. The problem with “regime change” as US policy since Iraq, is that it is now interpreted as military intervention rather than aggressive diplomacy. The average fellow who is f...

It is no accident that the First Amendment emphasizes freedom of the press; without it the electorate is kept in the dark, and few capitalize on the freedom of information act. Today’s criteria of the mainstream news media are to scoop competition, spin headlines and TV clips with sex, drugs and violence, pedophilia, political misstatements and muckraking while, for the most part, important and urgent issues go unnoticed. The media also engage in blatant jingoism in crises without having the ...

As long as the fear factor remains in the consciousness of the American voter — how can it not be with the yellow to orange light always on? — will always be insecure and choose a leader whose primary objective is making the nation safer. On the surface it would seem that the incumbent would therefore win by a landslide, inasmuch as in an apparent state of war, few would be willing to change horses in midstream. However, in this election year the traditional standard does not ring true. ...

Just as head start and after school programs should be prioritized throughout our land, so, too, should our foreign policy, together with a western alliance, be geared to the infusion of education aid to the Muslim world for the development of secular education to counteract the Madrassas and other Islamic schools indifferent to enculturating its children into the modern world. Exclusive, rote study of the Qur’an without modern curriculum serves as an obsessive continuum of fundamentalism that...

'Tis the season for Monday morning quarterbacks to throw their annual bombs at Truman for ordering the atomic attack on Japan fifty-nine years ago. As a marine who had experienced bloody Okinawa and having witnessed the Kamikaze off shore assaults on the Navy which lost 8,000 sailors as a consequence, I am reluctant to believe as reported years later that the Japanese were ready to surrender before, according to five out of seven five star officers who in hindsight disagreed with the Hiro...

It appears that the number one voting issue is in choosing a commander in chief owing to terrorism and the projected manner in which Iraq is handled in a new presidential term — apparently being presidential doesn’t matter. A sizable number of voters are comfortable with Bush in the area of militancy because there have been no threats carried out by Al Qaeda, and Iraq, in a sense, is “winding down” and confidently a matter of history. On the other hand, there are old school voters who zero in o...

The concern over the voting integrity of electronic systems is totally misdirected by emphasizing a “paper trail” which is only going to mirror the glitches of the system. It is true, as anyone who uses a computer knows and continually badgered, backing up your input is imperative but it does not guarantee that the back up will be any different from the original. The same applies to printing out your data — if you don’t proof your input the errors remain. The solution to the problem is misdir...

Recent HealthGrades studies show that 195,000 die each year from medical error in hospitals, according to Newsweek . On its website HealthGrades has posted a list of hospitals with the best patient safety records. Also Accreditation of Health Care Organizations has posted a scorecard for the quality of hospitals, and suggest a patient check it out before admissions. This is outrageous. With this kind of malpractice there would be widespread lawsuits except, I suspect, most cases are...