Michael Brenner Why bother with facts? That question threads its way through political discourse, through educational philosophy and through observations on the media. Rarely is it confronted squarely. For the lines between actual reality and virtual reality have been so blurred that the distinction itself no longer is generally recognized. The axiom that since I…
Walter Stewart (Major General, U.S. Army, retired) Sniper Chris Kyle did not live long enough. I don’t say this in the context of his and Chad Littlefield’s senseless murder at the hands of a supposed brother-in-arms, but in the context of the American Sniper movie trailer that has Kyle saying, “I’m willing to meet my…
b. traven In the run up to the Iraq war in 2002-03, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain worked so hard to get American approval that he was widely labelled as George W. Bush’s “poodle.” But who today yelps loudest when the kings of Saudi Arabia (that poor excuse for a nation) say “bark”?…
Daniel N. White James Fallows, a noted journalist and author of National Defense (1981), is tits on a boar useless these days. That’s my conclusion after reading his Atlantic Monthly cover story, The Tragedy of the American Military, in which he asks, Why do the best soldiers in the world keep losing? It is a truly terrible…
Michael Brenner The roulette wheel that is Presidential politics is spinning faster now that we are only one year and eight months from election day. Bets are being placed as the main stakeholders look to their future financial and career investments. The media play to the hilt this longest running spectacle that our pop culture…
Don Rose. Introduction by b. traven. Chicago may be this country’s “Second City” but it may also be a microcosm of the three card monte our politicians play with our national debt. In this article Don Rose, our political strategist of Chicago, dissects how Chicago pols keep escalating the city’s debt, even as they pass…
P. J. Sullivan There is a wireless revolution going on. From “smart” phones to “smart” grids to Wi-Fi to unmanned drones to driverless cars, everything seems to be going wireless, with little or no consideration of the consequences to human health. There are red flags linking wireless radiation to serious disorders: leukemia, brain tumors, heart arrhythmias,…
Henry Pelifian The Hollywood Western is truly an American creation that epitomized the hardship to maintain and restore justice. The inequality, greed and corruption were rampant in the Westerns of Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Tim Holt, Randolph Scott, Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea. There are singular Westerns from actors who did not specialize in the Western genre…
Clay Bonnyman Evans NBC news anchor Brian Williams has been suspended for six months without pay, after falsely claiming that a helicopter he was riding in over Iraq on March 24, 2003 was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. The public has been savage in practically demanding the newsman’s crucifixion for telling a “white lie” — for that’s what…
Andy Piascik John Mihalec’s recent column in the Connecticut Post (50 Years Ago: The Start to Vietnam War, February 7) is good for laughs but is seriously lacking as history. Here’s some history that Mihalec, a former speech writer for President Gerald Ford, conveniently left out of his fanciful account. Pinpointing where US aggression in…
The Contrary Perspective 