Author Archives: floegel

All Politics Is Local

2/23/2006 – 1:35 pm

It’s winter in Vermont, although it’s been in the 40’s for most of the season, there’s no snow on the ground and my neighbor, Tom, is moping about the house. He has a new collapsible ice shanty, auger and tip-ups sitting in his basement unused, because the ice on Lake Champlain (what there is of […]

Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

The Man Who Wasn’t There

2/16/2006 – 1:50 pm

Salon magazine published another round of photos from the Abu Ghraib torture scandal that broke in the spring of 2004. One photo is of the body of Manadel al-Jamadi. One eye is open, fixed and glassy; the other purple and swollen shut. A bloody bandage rests on the side of his face. According to the […]

Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

Catastrophic Gradualism

2/9/2006 – 1:47 pm

I was browsing in a second-hand bookstore recently, brooding as I browsed on the current state of society. My eye fell on a volume of essays by George Orwell titled, “In Front of Your Nose.” It seemed liked such a deliberate response to my thoughts that I bought it. In an October 1945 essay called […]

Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

Time of Our Choosing

2/2/2006 – 3:14 pm

Three years ago Sunday, Colin Powell made his famous appearance before the UN Security Council. Mr. Powell still maintains he did not lie that day, because he did not know that what he was saying was untrue, but it was untrue just the same. While Mr. Powell was destroying his reputation in New York, the […]

Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

In The Barn?

1/26/2006 – 10:57 am

Jingos are fond of quoting (misquoting, actually) Stephen Decatur’s famous toast: “My country, right or wrong.” G.K. Chesterton compared that sentiment to: “My mother, drunk or sober.” Our country is currently wrong and our president is drunk with power the founding fathers never meant him to have. Commodore Decatur was right, however, it is our […]

Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

Now and Again

1/19/2006 – 6:39 pm

The illegal detention of prisoners at the naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba is one of several blemishes on the face of America’s international image. Many commentators have remarked on the shame George W. Bush’s concentration camps have brought to this nation – and they’re right. Many of these commentators have unfavorably compared Mr. Bush to […]

Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

What You’re Paying For

1/12/2006 – 1:32 pm

George Bush gave a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars this week, attacking critics who say he went to war in Iraq for oil. Mr. Bush says his invasion was to spread democracy. “Dictatorships seem orderly,” he said. “When one man makes all the decisions, there is no need for negotiation or compromise. Democracies […]

Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)