Untitled Document Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining. Look at a map of the United States. The area that will be completely inundated by the rising ocean is the American Southeast, including the most populated […]
Politics
Posted inOpinion
Dropping out of the Electoral College
Untitled Document A Stanford University computer scientist named John Koza has formulated a compelling and pragmatic alternative to the Electoral College. It’s called the National Popular Vote, and it has been hailed as “ingenious” in two New York Times editorials. In April, Maryland became the first state to pass it into law. Several other states, including […]
Posted inOpinion
A surge of pessimism
Untitled Document Much ink has been spilled and outrage revved up in arguing that the Bush administration has shamefully ignored the Iraq Study Group report released in December. But in a speech on Jan. 10 announcing a new strategy for Iraq, President George W. Bush took a major ISG recommendation to heart: the United States […]
Posted inOpinion
The race to ban what%uFFFDs bad for us
Untitled Document Is there any doubt that the infantilization of adults is one of the defining characteristics of contemporary politics? New York City just banned the use of trans fats in restaurant meals, and an Ohio law passed in November that bans smoking in virtually all business establishments (even in company-owned vehicles such as trailer-truck […]
Posted inOpinion
Excuses, excuses
As President George W. Bush’s position on Iraq has become more embattled and folks in the White House have become increasingly isolated, it’s fallen to right-wing scribes and pundits to provide the commander-in-chief with some means of escape from the disaster he’s created. So I thought I’d walk you through a few recent right-wing attempts […]
Posted inOpinion
The jig is up
November 2006 was a month that historians will study in minute detail, day by day and headline by headline, when they attempt to reconstruct the iron chain of misery the United States has been forging for itself since September 2001 — though some will maintain that November 2000, with its still-disputed presidential election, was the […]
Posted inOpinion
Bring it on
The myth of Robin Hood — the outlaw who steals from the rich and gives to the poor (after deducting a modest commission) — is an ancient myth of universal appeal, one that must predate by many centuries the quasi-historical English bandit of the 12th century whose exploits were as familiar to my childhood as […]
Posted inOpinion
It%uFFFDs bigger than hip-hop
When it comes to putting out music that makes a statement, rap has ebbed and flowed. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, hip-hop’s mantra was “black power,” and its uniform was a (Malcolm) X baseball cap and Africa medallion. The Stop the Violence Movement’s “Self Destruction” and West Coast Rap All Stars’ “We’re All […]
Posted inOpinion
Caging the beast
“Kill every buffalo you can . . . every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.” — Col. R.I. Dodge, Fort McPherson, 1867 “We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture them or . . . kill them until we have imposed law and order in this country. […]
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Leaving nothing to chance
The last time a statewide referendum went before the Illinois electorate, 1978, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt had just been shot and paralyzed, perennial Hall of Fame reject Pete Rose cracked his 3,000th hit, and Ted Kaczynski sent his first bomb to Northwestern University. On May 8, volunteers from a conservative group called Protect Marriage Illinois submitted […]
Posted inOpinion
Wooing single women
Meet the single woman, breadwinner, cultural icon, and the star of every liberal’s dream of regime change. Whether she is a divorced waitress in Harlem, a welfare mom in Iowa, or that 30-something singleton sipping a Cosmopolitan at your local bar, the unmarried woman may hold the fate of the 2004 elections in the palm […]
