Category Archives: Civil Liberty

Get Used To It

7/17/2008 – 2:59 pm

A reader said to me the other day, “You’re stuff’s getting dark lately.” She was right; it has. I don’t know what to do about that, given I define the mission of this site as calling it as I see it. Right now, it looks dark. If it’s any consolation, it’s [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Global Warming | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Like a Motherless Child

7/3/2008 – 10:27 am

Vermont had its first AMBER alert last week. (AMBER is an acronym for America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response, a cumbersome tribute to Amber Hagerman, who was abducted and murdered in Texas in 1996.)
Twelve-year-old Brooke Bennett disappeared on the 25th of June. Stories soon circulated that she had lied to her mother about where [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Economy, Global Warming | Tagged | Comments (0)

The State of the Police State

5/29/2008 – 10:04 am

Tuesday’s New York Times reported an outbreak of corruption among border guards along the U.S.-Mexican border. Although most of the corruption reported involves the smuggling of illegal aliens, similar corruption could introduce drugs, weapons and/or terrorists to the U.S. In short, the corrupt border agents do the opposite of what they were hired [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

M&M Enterprises

5/22/2008 – 8:35 am

When I was a young man, I read (as every young person should) Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” a novel about the absurd bureaucracy of war and the misery it wreaks on those caught within it.
The most absurd character in the book is Milo Minderbinder, who – at least initially - runs the mess hall. A [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, September 11th | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Things I Never Learned in School

5/15/2008 – 11:41 am

History question: In what year did an American woman first cast a vote for president? The standard answer is 1920, after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granted suffrage to American women. But it’s wrong.
The first presidential ballot was cast by a woman in the election of 1872. The [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Electoral Politics | Comments (0)

Symptoms

5/1/2008 – 8:31 am

Forgive me. Accept my apologies. For the first time in 11 years, I missed not one, but two weeks in a row. I was overtaken by events and in the midst of the overtaking, I realized this is a signature symptom, perhaps the signature symptom, of contemporary life. So I’m trying to [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, Economy | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Smackdown! Hilton vs. Yoo!

4/3/2008 – 9:37 am

Let us now bash Paris Hilton. Why not? She’s a vapid, entitled blemish on the face of American culture. Born to wealth and privilege, Ms. Hilton is “famous for being famous,” attracting America’s attention with “reality” shows in which she and ex-friend Nicole Richie attempt, and fail with “hilarious” results, to live [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Commentary, September 11th | Tagged , | Comments (1)