Category Archives: Commentary

Guilty With an Excuse

3/25/2004 – 8:14 am

Twenty years ago, Bruce Springsteen used to do a monologue during his concerts about going to traffic court. Defendants were given three options: they could plead not guilty, guilty or “guilty with an excuse.” Bruce said his trip to court taught him that “everyone is guilty with an excuse.” So it is today. Supreme Court […]

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He Who Pays the Piper…

3/18/2004 – 9:36 pm

I’m writing this week from Costa Rica, the only non-militarized country in the Western Hemisphere. In 1948, following a five-week civil war, Costa Rica dissolved its army (it had lost the war to a band of rebel upstarts). At the same time, the nation launched a political experiment unique to the region. It took the […]

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On Account of Sex

3/11/2004 – 9:59 pm

The proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is starting to look like another of George W. Bush’s announcements that we’re going to the moon, or Mars. The right-wing religious portion of the American public got its knickers twisted, so Mr. Bush read an insincere statement into the tee vee cameras, walked away and that […]

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The Good Soldier

3/4/2004 – 6:55 am

In January, I wrote that 2004 will be the year that determines whether American democracy survives. The statement was more prophetic and carried broader implications than I realized. Democracy has been killed in Haiti, the semi-island nation in the Caribbean and American fingerprints are all over the corpse. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was hustled out of […]

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Day In and Day Out

2/26/2004 – 9:42 pm

One day last week – Wednesday, February 18 – 60 leading scientists issued a joint statement accusing the Bush administration of repeatedly distorting scientific information and abusing the scientific process to further its political goals. The next day – Thursday, February 19 – a scientific panel assembled by the Bush administration announced that it is […]

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Democracy One-Oh-One

2/19/2004 – 12:13 pm

There’s an old saying about paybacks; if you want proof of its veracity, cast a cold eye toward Iraq. Through most of Iraq’s history, the nation was dominated by Sunni Muslim Arabs, to the detriment of Kurds in the north and Shi’ite Arabs in the south. Although Sunnis account for only 20 percent of Iraq’s […]

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The Wrath of Khan

2/12/2004 – 9:36 am

I’ve developed a thick callus over my sense of the absurd through the years, but now and then something cuts right through and exposes the raw skin beneath. My flesh has been laid bare in recent days by the surreal nonchalance attending the revelation that Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist has been out peddling history’s most […]

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