Friday, June 19, 2009

YEP, seems like what we've got now is what someone once called "Bush Lite."

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

BE reminded: This country is far from being a "postracial" society. But then, as a couple of recent letters to the local newspaper have shown, some people will believe almost anything, especially if it gratifies their need to have a sociocultural "enemy" against which to tilt.

Monday, June 15, 2009

IN the world's only superpower, in the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen, in this beacon of democracy, in this bastion of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Barbara Ehrenreich writes that "the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of downward mobility — the already poor, the estimated 20 percent to 30 percent of the population who struggle to get by in the best of times. This demographic, the working poor, have already been living in an economic depression of their own. From their point of view “the economy,” as a shared condition, is a fiction."

Sunday, June 14, 2009

GOSH, what's this world coming to? Nick Kristof thinks medical practitioners and providers shouldn't be getting rich on the backs of the poor, the infirm and elderly, and the shrinking middle class.

IN late spring, we had a family at home in its nest in the silk wreath on the front screen door: