Acting Stupidly Would be an Improvement

Remember the halcyon days of 2009, when the country was embroiled in the first racial controversy of the brand new Obama presidency? You know, when the Cambridge, Massachusetts police thought that the world-renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested for essentially breaking into his own house because the front door was stuck?  Those… Continue reading Acting Stupidly Would be an Improvement

Chris Christie – Hey, Wait: I’m the Big Mouth.

ASHLAND, NH - JULY 1: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) waits to speak at a town hall meeting at the American Legion Dupuis Cross Post 15 July 1, 2015 in Ashland, New Hampshire. Christie announced his presidential candidacy yesterday. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

Poor Chris Christie. After five years of berating people on YouTube, telling teachers, members of the armed services and other assorted citizens of New Jersey who just want their voices to be heard to essentially shut up, and after creating this persona of a man who tells the facts as they are (not just as… Continue reading Chris Christie – Hey, Wait: I’m the Big Mouth.

The Pendulum Swings Back to the Right

Donald Trump gestures while speaking surrounded by people whose families were victims of illegal immigrants on July 10, 2015 while meeting with the press at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where some shared their stories of the loss of a loved one. The US business magnate Trump, who is running for president in the 2016 presidential elections, angered members of the Latino community with recent comments but says he will win the Latino vote. AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWN (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

Remember the last couple of weeks of June, when the country seemed a bit more liberal after the Supreme Court had wondrously ruled in favor of marriage equality, the Affordable Care Act and housing? And then the Confederate flags came down? Slap. It didn’t happen overnight, but the country seems to have rebounded from that… Continue reading The Pendulum Swings Back to the Right

The JV Get Their Minutes

In this photo taken May 20, 2015, Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., poses for a portrait before an interview with The Associated Press in Washington. For Democrats who had hoped to lure Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren into a presidential campaign, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders might be the next best thing. Sanders, who is opening his official presidential campaign Tuesday in Burlington, Vermont, aims to ignite a grassroots fire among left-leaning Democrats wary of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is laying out an agenda in step with the party's progressive wing and compatible with Warren's platform _ reining in Wall Street banks, tackling college debt and creating a government-financed infrastructure jobs program. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Those of us who grew up in the era of summer reruns have had the most difficult time with both the new media and political environments. There just is no downtime anymore, what with 24-hour news cycles and the panicked reaction of the main television networks to phones, Netflix, YouTube and on-demand programming. So it… Continue reading The JV Get Their Minutes

The Most Important Election of Them All

Well, yes and no. Aren’t all presidential elections the most important election in history? It certainly feels that way, especially if you listen to the media buzz that emanates every four years. The future of the country is at stake. The direction of our foreign and domestic policies will be set by the voters in… Continue reading The Most Important Election of Them All

The Conservative Court Turns Left

The same court that brought us corporations as people, unlimited political money, abortion restrictions, a step backwards in voting rights, and unequal pay has now thrown some serious bones to the left in the form of a stronger Affordable Care Act and a right to gay marriage. I’m sure that wherever they are, David Souter… Continue reading The Conservative Court Turns Left

Education By Dummies

Politicians can talk all they want about how changes to the American education system such as the Common Core, new testing rubrics and teacher evaluation systems will vault us into the top tiers of learned nations over the next few years, but, really, that’s not going to happen if what’s happening in Arizona and other… Continue reading Education By Dummies

Christie Tells It Like It’s Not

It’s getting a bit too easy finding contradictions and hypocritical statements in what Governor Chris Christie is saying these days. That must mean he’s running for president. On his signature issue, pension and benefit reform, the governor went back on his promise to make a full payment for 2014, and his administration even argued in… Continue reading Christie Tells It Like It’s Not

The Latest GOP Swimsuit Competition

My apologies if the image of Chris Christie in a swimsuit finds you eating a meal while reading this. It’s one of the hardships of the blogging trade, I know. As mid-January hurries into late-January (a month of Mondays if there ever was one), we find ourselves confronted with news from the right side of… Continue reading The Latest GOP Swimsuit Competition

The Pendulum Swings Both Ways

  It took about 35 years, but the Republican Party is just where it wants to be. They have a Congressional majority and are flush with the optimism of a political movement that they believe has broad popular support. They are looking forward to perhaps winning the presidency in 2016 and finally being able to… Continue reading The Pendulum Swings Both Ways

Is It Just Me?

Is it just me, or does it still not feel like the holidays yet? Perhaps the warmish, wet weather we’ve had here in the Northeast is partly to blame, or maybe it’s that the calendar has jammed the buying season into one less week this year because of a late Thanksgiving. Yes, yes, Chanukah, for… Continue reading Is It Just Me?

Rare Cloud Formation Made Some Think the Rapture was Happening

The formation is referred to as a Fallstreak Hole. It happens when ice particles form in a section of clouds, causing that section to fall below the surface if the rest of the cloud. But for some residents in the Gippsland area of Victoria, the strange formation had people thinking the rapture was about to… Continue reading Rare Cloud Formation Made Some Think the Rapture was Happening