Category Archives: Commentary

The Price of Free Speech

3/3/2011 – 3:12 pm

Here I am, agreeing with the Roberts Court twice in one week. Tuesday’s ruling was fun. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that ATT cannot claim its communication with various government agencies are exempt from Freedom of Information laws based on a clause protecting “personal privacy.” Although the court has ruled – unfortunately – that corporations […]

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Gumbo? Again?

2/24/2011 – 12:23 pm

WINTER PARK, FL – Last week’s helping of gumbo was favorably received and since I’m supposed to be on vacation this week and because there’s still dozens of issues popping up – more gumbo. The venom I received from the bees last week was not, in the longer view, as effective as I’d hoped it […]

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Some Call it Gumbo

2/17/2011 – 5:50 pm

I’m busy this week and have many things on my mind and small bits of unfinished business, so while I usually restrict my commentaries to one topic, I’m going to borrow my friend Renee’s term and give you some Thursday gumbo – a little of everything. The good thing about beekeeping is you have ready […]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty, Global Warming, Oil, Peak Oil | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Ten Thousand and One Arabian Nights

2/10/2011 – 2:55 pm

I’ve been procrastinating all day. This is partially because, well, it’s what I do. This week’s excuse is that I’ve been waiting to see what happens in Egypt. As I wrote last week, the Obama administration can’t seem to get its head out of the desert sand and make a decision about Egypt. Or make […]

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What Were We Thinking?

2/3/2011 – 1:32 pm

I was walking across campus that October afternoon when I heard the news. I rushed to the Journalism Department where the Associated Press Teletype was clattering in its insulated booth. Other J-students and professors were gathered around, tearing off the reports as they came in and silently passing them around. Anwar Sadat was dead, assassinated […]

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Mafia States

1/27/2011 – 2:47 pm

This week’s paper edition of Newsweek (I can’t find it online) has a story about Tunisia and carries this subhead: “Ben Ali’s fall has exposed the rotten truth of every regime in the Arab world: they’re all, in effect, mafia states, each operating as a lucrative family business.” Pretty harsh, but a) probably true b) […]

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It Wasn’t Always a Tiger

1/20/2011 – 4:49 pm

“Eeny, meeny, miney, moe. Catch a tiger by the toe.” That’s the rhyme we used as six-year-olds trying to settle the important issue of Who Should Go First. I knew from my parents that the individual caught by the toe had not always been a tiger. The euphemistic tiger was substituted sometime, I imagine, in […]

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