Widespread gambling is the ultimate roll of the dice turning up snake eyes of addiction. Nationwide there are some eight million compulsive gamblers disrupting their lives and their loved ones. Recreational gambling is not unlike the risk of dependence in illicit drug-use originally socially motivated. The nation has enough problems without every greedy state opening its borders or rivers for the sake of revenue and risking —particularly among the young— a national crisis of compulsiv...
As On liners can see from the blurb below, I wrote this where I taught a long time ago to the district superintendent for the express purpose of warding off “get tough,” autocratic process of assessing teachers because administrators aren’t really trained thoroughly on that score — I have the feeling even less so today in many schools. You will see how difficult it is to evaluate teachers, let alone an entire school. This current fetish for tests won’t do it for the simple reason they are...
To shop or not to shop at Wal-Mart is a serious puzzle. There is no question that the consumer benefits from the bargains without atmosphere and frills. The benefit, however, may be short-term as it appears to be waking the union’s gentle giant, particularly those in the food chains that have found that non-unionized WalMart is now king of the food chains. We of the bottom line gush: WM is surely doing something right in the competitive world. We also like to champion small business with ...
Good taste is a palatable trait that one likes to think he possesses. Unfortunately where there is good taste there is bad—but the latter resides with others, never with us. There are the gauche who have no class, the public offenders who know no bounds, the sports fans who reek of beer. Not us—we pick our noses in private, we are abusive only to loved ones, at an event we imbibe calmly from a silver flask. Those who will not torment their feet with dress shoes and white sox will scoff at ...
With the toppling of all the icons and statues of Saddam it is ironic that the right wing is determined to delete FDR from the dime and to replace with the Gipper as vengeance that CBS dared make an irreverent film about the Right’s icon. They are not even satisfied with the wide-spread renaming of countless structures in which Reagan had no part, but have an organization dedicated to have each state in the union to have a minimum of one state landmark named after him in addition to one in al...
IBM, the once great US corporation up to the 80s that never laid off workers, has been downsizing ever since with mass layoffs in pockets of the country and now five thousand more by replacing them with workers overseas. This is all too emblematic of the corporate world since the 80s. IBM apparently has never recovered from shell-shock for giving the green light to Microsoft in the early ‘80s. It should have given the old CPM operating system [at the time far superior] the same license for ...
James Joyce said that since “Finnegan’s Wake” took him seventeen years to write, the reader should damn well spend at least five years reading it. If truth is beauty and beauty truth, then how does one explain Picasso? If the universe is unbegun and unending but the fourth dimension is hemmed in by finite time is it conceivable to think of eternity as unbegun, unending? What if the Democrats said the hell with FDR and his big government and de-legislated all of his projects, would...
Did you know that scoring system gives five points to an “Ugh” reply? — the same for an insightful reply. Moreover why is a well-written article only 15 points, equal to nothing more than a fanciful blurb? I also notice that the top users rack up points furiously with their incessant spillover at the forum. Being new to the game — and not aware of the forum for sometime — I hesitate to suggest a different, better scoring system, inasmuch as most of my blogs go by un commented, so it will ...
Where have I and the nation been for the last fourteen years since the fall of the Soviets? — our heads have been in the sands of the Middle East. Joby Warrick, a Washington Post staff writer, alerts us to the tiny rogue Transdniester Moldovan Republic “no bigger than R.I.” but a massive dumping ground for Soviet arms during the Soviet Army’s withdrawal. Its chief reason for its existence is a pipeline of arms to fellow rogues and terrorists. “For terrorists this is [Transdniester] the best...
D desperation E egalitarian’s demise M moderation or muddling O omissions C calcification R rearranging postures A anything goes to suit the polls T terrorized by the right The democrats are uncomfortable as a minority party even though a majority — not electoral — agrees with their views when they stick by them. Unfortunately, they are obsessed with the hopeless aim of regaining the red states.
R religion is power E errant thinking P public education is failing U unabashed self-righteousness B brilliant strategy of deception L labor unions are the enemy I instant dollar gratification C cunning in undermining the general will A analysis at its lowest level N negativism toward any kind of regulation Republicans are a majority because of the electoral college, which in the first place was designed to protect sparsely populated states to ne...
Before Moses ordered “Thou shalt not kill” was murder okay? Did not human reason already intuit that it was bad to take a life in virtue of the instinct of self-preservation in the other as well as the self? — doubtless. Nevertheless, there were those of the “others” who did not go beyond the perception of self-survival, thus failing to take into account the other guy’s rights. As a matter of fact, this type, was all too aware of self-preservation as a powerful tool in getting others to follow...
In the “Family of Politics” issue last year of The American Prospect, I suppose a liberal magazine needs the luxury of self therapy in repeating the painfully obvious — what the heck the conservatives harass us obsessively with their trite commentary. Still, I find it vexing to read such commentary as: Portes’ “Many children of immigrant parents are not living out the American Dream. Until better jobs and schools materialize, they are at risk of becoming the next underclass.”Coontz: “The m...
On my sister’s birthday, December 13th, she got an extra kick to celebration by the capture of Saddam Hussein. It was particularly joyous to her because her granddaughter had served in Iraq. Seeing this once feared tyrant so disheveled and disoriented was a moment devoutly wished. Here was a man who sent his sons to go out in “glory” while he cowered in a living tomb. Over the months, in hearing the Democratic candidates criticizing Bush for his failure to find bin Laden and Saddam, I felt ...
In the old days — dating myself here — the Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler, whom I read only to get my juices going over his unmitigated hatred of Eleanor, Franklin, and Harry, I at least was apprised of the irrational opposition to the New and Fair Deals. So, too, with Bill O’Reilly, though not to the same extent since I’m much older and heard it all before, but he is more intense over current culture is why I read him once in a while; and now I could not resist an addendum to my “Why Liber...