Category Archives: Commentary

The Elephant

12/18/2003 – 12:10 pm

“The elephant in the living room” is the phrase used to describe an issue too large to ignore, but one that is ignored anyway, because it is also too large to grasp. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the elephant in the living room of left politics in America. We sit around and drink our micro-brewed beer […]

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Look, a Monkey!

12/11/2003 – 9:58 am

The Flying Karamazov Brothers juggling troupe performs intricate feats of throwing and catching, often with objects not designed to be thrown or caught. As a result, there are two or three awkward moments in each performance when the object of the juggle goes sailing past its intended target and crash-lands. At such moments, one of […]

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The New Rules

12/4/2003 – 8:47 am

The day before Thanksgiving, the Bush administration announced it is changing the rule that governs the emission of the toxic metal mercury and other pollutants from utility-owned power plants. This rule change will – of course – allow coal-fired plants to keep belching 48 tons of mercury every year. Check the timing on this. Not […]

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The Guy You Never Heard Of

11/27/2003 – 6:38 pm

Last month, I reported that Greenpeace’s First Amendment rights are under attack by the Ashcroft Justice Department. As I said then, don’t worry about Greenpeace, worry about the rights of the guy you never heard of. That guy’s name is Brett Bursey. On October 24, 2002, President Bush made a stop at the airport in […]

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Cut and Run

11/20/2003 – 6:36 pm

Now that the World Series is over, baseball periodicals resort to all the old tricks to get through the off-season. A favorite is the “What ever happened to____?” article. Pick a moderately famous ballplayer who retired 20 years ago and find out what he’s been up to. More often than not, the answer is: fishing. […]

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The Janitor’s Son

11/13/2003 – 6:35 pm

Do you feel a draft? Maybe not yet, but you might feel one soon. I have yet to see it in an American news source, but the Toronto Star and the UK’s Guardian are both reporting that the Department of Defense is shoring up the infrastructure for a national draft. This is no surprise. The […]

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The Metric System

11/6/2003 – 5:59 pm

In his “long, hard slog” memorandum three weeks ago, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote, “Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror.” Like so many other statements in that memo, Mr. Rumsfeld’s quest for metrics reveals much about our position in the war on terror, regardless […]

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