Category Archives: Commentary

Decoding the Turkey

11/25/2004 – 8:09 am

Sharing a meal is the oldest of rituals; the first hominids to share food with those beyond their family group took the first – and probably largest – step on the path toward civilization. What a transcendent act it must have been, 20,000 years ago, to give away food. It’s not surprising that eating or […]

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Welcome to the Monkey House

11/18/2004 – 2:32 pm

After a week of intense fighting, often at close quarters, it now seems the remaining insurgents are being driven from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? It’s astounding, that even at this late date, one can read “thought” pieces in the mainstream media urging George […]

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Practice What You Preach

11/11/2004 – 11:52 am

Today is the 11th of November; when I was a child, people still called this “Armistice Day,” in commemoration of the cease-fire that ended the First World War. Maybe it’s a good day to call an armistice in America’s red-vs.-blue civil war. Maybe not. Presidential advisor Karl Rove was quoted in Wednesday’s New York Times […]

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The Government We Deserve

11/4/2004 – 9:33 am

It was dusk on Election Day and I was reaching a state of exhilaration. Exhausted, dehydrated, I had been running on adrenaline for the past 36 hours and now I was literally running through a low-income housing project in Ocala, Florida. We’d been through there a few days before, knocking on doors, urging citizens to […]

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Weather is Fine, Wish You Were Here

10/28/2004 – 3:14 pm

How’d you like a pre-election postcard from central Florida? I left 30-degree Vermont Monday and landed back in what seems the middle of July, made all the hotter by the political hot air. My friend Matt and I volunteered to spend the last week before the election helping MoveOn’s political action committee turn out the […]

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The Machine Age

10/21/2004 – 2:07 pm

I’ve had a profound sense of déjà vu for the past few weeks and this year, it’s not coming from the Red Sox. As we enter the final, agonizing weeks of the election campaign it’s become clear that the Republican Party has revived, on a national level, a device that was once the specialty of […]

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What’s In Your Wallet?

10/14/2004 – 4:22 pm

In my wallet is a green and white card with my name, address, date of birth, height, weight (approximately) and eye color, along with various codes and numbers. It’s my driver’s license and unlike almost every one of the millions of other American drivers’ licenses, it does not have a photo. Vermont is the only […]

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