There is something truly obscene about activity at the top of the economic spectrum these days. I’m going to start out as if I’m attacking big salaries for athletes, but that’s really just an introduction and an example. Shooting guard Bradley Beal has agreed to a contract to remain with the NBA Washington Wizards for …
A guy walks into a bar and says, “Trump is an arsehole.” Another guy says to him, “I resent that.” “Why? Are you a Trump fan?” “No,” the second guy said. “I am an arsehole.” *** In the summer of 1973, John Dean electrified America by using his testimony to lay the Watergate scandals right …
“… and the lonely voice of youth cries, ‘What is truth?’”– JOHNNY CASH, 1968 If there’s one answer I could give to that question, it would be that truth is something almost everyone thinks they know, but very few of us actually do. There are certainly plenty of folks on both sides of the political …
Roger B. Taney. Melville Fuller. William Howard Taft. Unless you’re a serious student of American history, you have probably heard of only one of these three men. And him only because of something outside the context of this comparison. Someday another name will be added to this list. John Roberts. All four men either served …
ROBERTS JOINS THE LIST OF HORRIBLE CHIEF JUSTICES Read More »
What is the most important constitutional right an American citizen has? It isn’t freedom of speech, press or religion. It isn’t the right to assemble peaceably. And contrary to what the gun nuts would say, it isn’t the right to keep and bear arms. The most important right we have as Americans is one so …
RIGHT TO TRAVEL A BIG DEAL IN OUR POST-ROE WORLD Read More »
If you’re looking for consistency and an overall philosophy linking the Supreme Court’s two big decisions this week, it’s fiarly simple. “Once you’re born, duck.” Yesterday, the Court released a ruling that said New York State didn’t have the right to make it more difficult for people to go out in public packing heat. New …
Another horrific ruling by the Supreme Court today, further dividing the country over guns. I’ll address that specifically later, but here’s a piece originally from eight years ago about the divisions in our country. *** I wish I weren’t so angry at my country. I wish I didn’t see so much bad in our political …
It was the summer of 1973, and one show on television had a death grip on the nation’s curiosity. Democrats and Republicans alike were doing their best to get at the truth about the scandals that all fit under the umbrella known as Watergate. Nine years after the Civil Rights Act passed Congress, Sam Ervin …
WE COULD LEARN A LOT FROM THE WATERGATE HEARINGS Read More »
Originally from 2014. *** “Let us go to the banks of the ocean where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee, long ago I used to be a young man but dear Margaret remembers that for me …”— “THE DUTCHMAN,” Michael Peter Smith For the last few days, I have been listening to at least a …
I wrote this piece in 1998 in the middle of my five years as a California newspaper columnist. It will be one of the pieces in a collection I’m compiling called “Humor and Heart: 40 Years as a Columnist” that will be published later this year. I hope you enjoy it. *** I’m being stalked. …
SURVIVING A STALKING BY A DEDICATED GRAMMAR NAZI Read More »
