It’s Terrible To Kill Kids In CT But Fine To Do It In Afghanistan And Palestine?

President Obama has just promised to take action against those who kill children in cold blood.  One thing that he could do immediately to carry out this promise is to stop killing innocent children with all his guns, missiles and drones — for no other reason than because they were born in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Palestine instead of in Connecticut. 400 innocent Palestinian children were shot in cold blood in Gaza during Cast Lead I.  48 innocent children and 12 innocent women were shot in cold blood in Gaza during... Read article

War: The Ultimate Example of Bullying

At a local neighborhood meeting the other day, I made a comment that someone else didn’t like – and the next thing I knew this person was yelling at me Big Time.  Perhaps she thought that the sheer volume of her voice would bully me into keeping the real 411 to myself.  Not gonna happen. I’ve been bullied all my life by all kinds of expert bullies.  I’ve been threatened by terrorists in Iraq, chased by North Korean border guards, issued death threats by the IDF – and, even worse,... Read article

(Allegedly) Chicago Probate Courts Suck Eggs & Other Cautionary Tales For Seniors

Did you know that, legally, you can tell or write down any damn lie that you please about anyone else on the planet – as long as you qualify it by saying or writing the magic word “allegedly” just before you start lying through your teeth?  Apparently you can — because the use of “allegedly” changes a statement of fact into an opinion, and opinions do not have to be proven because, “pure opinions, by their very nature, cannot be proven true or false.”  Milkovich... Read article

Double Standards In America: Benefiting You But Not Me

Everywhere I look these days, I see hypocrisy and double standards being usedby Americans — locally, nationally and internationally. Locally, for instance, a neighbor of mine recently intimidated and bullied her landlord into giving her all kinds of favors and perks.  However, when this same landlord attempted to do something that would have benefited all of his tenants, she suddenly threatened to take him to court.  “More stuff for me, less stuff for you,” seemed to be the argument that she plans... Read article

Nothing But Net: Winners & Losers In A War On Iran

My head is currently filled up with lists of things that I will need to do in order to get myself to Cleveland to attend a convention for murder-mystery writers and readers http://bouchercon2012.com/.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m deaf, dumb and blind to what else is going on in the rest of the world.  It seems that BenjaminNetanyahu is still just as busy trying to drum up a war with Iran as George Bush used to be back when he was trying to get us to bomb the heck out of Iraq. According to Middle East expert... Read article

Asthma, Cancer, Flu: When Our Bodies Finally “Just Say No”

Oh crap. I seem to be doomed to become an expert on almost every new major epidemic in America — and to do it the hard way. First I had friends die of HIV-related causes back in the 1980s. Then more of my friends became parents of children with autism back in the 1990s. And now I have lots of friends with kids that suffer from asthma. What’s with that? America is spozed to be the healthiest country in the world. So why aren’t we? Why are Americans by the millions now falling victim to these new... Read article

Nigeria Today: Taking Corporate Power To Its logical Conclusion

You think that America’s corporate-owned government has its drawbacks?  Wait until you hear what the corporate-owned government in Nigeria is up to!  You think that the results of having corporate Big Money buying off America’s politicians has been scary and sad?  Then you obviously haven’t ever been to Nigeria — where they have definitely gone way far beyond merely “scary” or “sad”. When it comes to having a corporate-owned government, apparently Nigeria has become the... Read article

America The Next Lost Atlantis: Geographically, Economically, Politically & Morally

Geographically:  Now that the world’s ocean levels have started rising much faster than predicted, America’s coastal cities may become submerged far sooner than we thought.  And, sooner rather than later, Manhattan stands a very good chance of becoming the next lost Atlantis. Here’s a cute little video from NASA that describes what’s been happening to our planet’s climate over the last 131 years.  Check it out:  http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/131-years-of-global-warming-in-26-seconds/  In... Read article

Thoughts On Visiting Rome: That Empire Is Toast!

Here I am in Rome, the Eternal City. And you can usually find a fabulous monument or church or historical ruin on almost every corner. Or a gelato shop. First I scored a cheap-but-nice room at the Hollywood Hotel near the main railway station (using www.HostelWorld.com) and then settled in to see the sights. Rome is amazing. You should go there. Everyone here speaks English. Bring a map. Of course the first thing I did while in Rome was visit the Coliseum and the Forum. And must I state the obvious here?... Read article

The Israeli Neocons’ Second Nakba: Death By A Thousand Cuts

It is now pretty much a matter of record that, after World War II, refugees from Europe landed in Palestine and started a massive terrorist blitzkrieg campaign, massacring thousands of Christians and Muslims in their wake.  In a vast display of ethnic cleansing similar to what had previously happened in Europe, approximately 500 local towns were destroyed, 15,000 residents of Palestine were killed and 750,000 more were expelled.  Local residents of this area (the ones who actually survived, that is) started referring to... Read article

Torture In Palestine, Syria & Cleveland: Making It happen!

I recently attended a video presentation in Oakland given by a member of the Jenin Freedom Theatre, and while the speaker was describing various theater projects now being staged in Palestine, he also happened to mention several relatively unique types of psychological torture currently being implemented by Israeli corporatists and their enforcers in the occupied West Bank. For instance, imagine that you are a Palestinian farmer and happily out plowing your land — when a bunch of rather nasty armed settlers come rampaging... Read article

Dontcha Really Miss The Old Soviet Union?

When the Berlin Wall came down back in 1989, we all breathed a big sigh of relief. At last the evil Soviet Union had finally been defeated and destroyed. But perhaps now, deep down inside, a lot of us are starting to wish that we could get it all back again — back to the good old days when our enemies would stand still in just one place so that we could take potshots at the old USSR with impunity and not constantly be afraid of shooting our own selves in the foot! Back in the day, Americans worked for YEARS... Read article

America: Losing Its True Moral Compass

I’m currently reading a rather good book entitled “The Nurturing of Time Future,” by Howard Richards.  Although the author’s love affair with run-on paragraphs causes eye-strain at times, he does make several very important points — including that whenever a country loses its true moral compass, it soon becomes vulnerable to having pseudo-morality imposed upon it from above. And Richards isn’t talking about God here. Richards is talking about dictators — dictators who are able to... Read article

U.S. Supreme Court: A Great Example of Shariah Law

Currently many Americans hold a rather low opinion of Shariah Law, a system of jurisprudence used in Muslim countries that appears to be rather harsh, especially with regard to the rights of women and the common man.  However, this all-encompassing system of laws is not, as many have assumed, based on the teachings of the Qur’an but, according to Islamic scholar Ziauddin Sardar,was conceived, developed and established by the powerful Abbasid Caliphate (749-1258) in order to help caliphs run their empire — which... Read article

Government Entitlements: The Pentagon Gets Them But We Don’t?

It seems that all we ever hear coming out of Washington these days are statements such as, “The only way America can pay off its debts is to cut Social Security,” always followed quickly by, “For our own good, we have to eliminate MediCare!” And these vociferous demands for cuts to entitlements for America’s senior citizens always come in tandem with heart-rending cries of “Single-payer healthcare is Socialism,” and “Government must cut all pork from women’s healthcare... Read article

Starving By Accident: Are Americans Eating Real Food?

I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately.  No, scratch that.  I’m ALWAYS thinking about food.  So the other day I wandered over to eat at Picoso, a family-run Mexican restaurant in north Berkeley that makes the world’s best guacamole.  And while walking home past the world-famous Chez Panisse restaurant, I spotted a huge crowd of people standing around out in front. “What’s happening here?” I asked one of the people in line. “Michael Pollan and Maira Kalman are doing a book-signing... Read article

« Previous Page — Next Page »