Dennis Showalter. Introduction by William Astore. Over the next four years, historians around the world will grapple with the meaning and legacies of the “Great War” fought one hundred years ago (1914-1918). An epochal event in world history, World War I has as many meanings as it has had historians. Among those historians, Dennis Showalter…
Steve Naidamast The continuous mix of poorly produced software and/or its misuse in daily life is having an increasingly degenerative effect on the lives of those who use it, especially when software is misused to the extent that younger generations are now adapting to it with mobile computing devices. A recent paper clinically demonstrates…
Richard Silverstein. Introduction by b. traven. The truth that all fear to talk about. The Democrats waltz around it. The Republicans embrace it. The Israelis hint at anti-Semitism for those who speak it. The world is aware of it and possibly a majority of Americans would acknowledge it but fear to rock the boat. What…
P.J. Sullivan The controversy over health care in America misses an important point, that the human body is a self-healing organism. Americans think that doctors and medicines are the only options for the sick. They are not. There will always be a role for doctors, but the majority of illnesses are preventable and curable without…
Michael Murry As I believe either Barbara Tuchman or Frances FitzGerald wrote about Vietnam: once a war has gone on for more than a couple of years it can only repeat itself indefinitely. This poem focuses on America’s War on Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), but it has much to say about America’s current…
Richard Sahn The other night I was watching the movie “Platoon” on television. An American soldier was killed every few seconds while the platoon was immersed in a firefight with North Vietnamese regulars near the Cambodian border. In one scene the body of a dead GI was used as a shield as bullets were being…
Michael Gallagher I’m just mild about Francis: Pope Francis, that is. I’m afraid I can’t get that excited about either the Synod of Bishops, whose first session just ended, or the Pope himself. I don’t deny that gay marriage, admitting divorced Catholics to Communion, and the like are serious issues that warrant discussion and should…
Mimi Madduck. Introduction by b. traven. Allow me to introduce Mimi Madduck to our TCP audience. Mimi is a dear friend who has chosen a line of professional work that those of you who are veterans of one of our incessant “wars” will appreciate. It is work that is both emotionally challenging and personally rewarding. Mimi…
Steve Naidamast Frank Drake, in the development of his famous equation in the early 1960s for the search for extra-terrestrial life, included what is known as the “L” variable. This variable stipulates, in addition to the viability of a civilization’s life-span, the concept that if an earth-like planet is found with no life upon it, this lack…
Craig Miller Juan Williams, writing for the Hill, had this to say about the application of the 2001/2002 AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) to the Islamic State: As my friend and Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano has noted, [using the AUMF] is ridiculous because ISIS did not exist in 2001…
The Contrary Perspective 