Category Archives: Civil Liberty

“Pre-Positioned Weapons of Mass Destruction”

8/25/2011 – 2:44 pm

The tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks is a bit more than two weeks away.  People in DC and New York were viscerally reminded of this when an earthquake – unusually strong for the east coast – rattled them Tuesday.  Although human-induced climate change may affect hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts and blizzards, earthquakes remain an […]

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Two Australians

7/28/2011 – 3:44 pm

Two Australians in England in trouble.  One’s all over the recent news, one was all over the news six months ago, now keeping a low profile.  Neither man’s issues have been resolved. Guessing?  Rupert Murdoch, of course, and Julian Assange.  The Australians (Mr. Murdoch is now a US citizen) both left their homeland far behind […]

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Neighborhood Giant

7/7/2011 – 11:00 am

Last Friday was Canada Day, which commemorates the 1867 unification of three British colonies – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and “Canada” (Quebec and Ontario) – into one kingdom, as part of the United Kingdom. Canada did not achieve full separation from the UK until 1982. I was in Washington Friday and although I vaguely knew […]

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There’s an App for That

6/30/2011 – 9:54 am

I’m a middle-aged man, with the characteristics of a middle-aged man. I accept this. In summer, I grill and I tend to make a fetish of it. I make my own barbecue sauce. I make out that it’s some big artisan deal, when it’s really not. Probably another ego thing. I was out in the […]

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500 Questions

6/23/2011 – 10:28 am

I have a friend, approaching middle age, who suddenly found himself single last year after 15 years of marriage. Recently he decided it’s time to re-enter the singles scene and after some fruitless flailing, surrendered to the 21st century inevitability of the computer dating service. I find the whole thing fascinating, from a purely academic […]

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A Few Crumbs

6/16/2011 – 2:23 pm

I was helping the teenager prepare for her English final last week, reviewing with her Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir “Night,” which she read this semester. (I’d never read the book, a gap in my own education.) I came across this passage: “Dozens of starving men fought each other to death for a few crumbs (thrown […]

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Acting Like a Patriot

6/9/2011 – 9:48 am

The tenth of July 1995 was the tenth anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by the French government. The RW had been protesting French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. Fernando Pereira was killed. In 1995, the French were again testing nukes in the Pacific and Greenpeace had been holding a protest vigil […]

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