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…
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…
W.J. Astore In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And he discovered a new world. New to him, of course, and his fellow Europeans, not to the indigenous peoples already living there. Yes, Columbus gets too much credit for that “discovery.” Yes, he and his fellow Europeans were incredibly ambitious, often vicious, and not overly…
Steve Naidamast After surviving tragedy at the World Trade Center on 9-11-2001 (I escaped from building #5, which was engulfed in a fireball 30 to 45 minutes after I evacuated), I became driven to find out the underlying causes of that event. My studies took me toward subjects in sociology and political history as well as…
By KokonutGrove As a student of American history and politics, in my lifetime I’ve witnessed a dangerous erosion of civil and personal liberties. Such an erosion is the hallmark of fascism. Back in the 1970s and ‘80s when my father was stationed in Berlin, he often discussed the totalitarian police state the East Germans created as…
W.J. Astore The more the United States has come to talk about dominance, the less dominant we’ve become. To compensate, we’ve become a steroidal nation, to include the violent side effects associated with steroid use (just look at the latest stories out of the NFL about spousal and child abuse, or our steroidal police forces,…
Matthew Jacobson Today’s Democrats do not realize the extent to which the Republican Party, and the media machine that it so expertly operates, have transformed politically emotional energy into pure, purposeful political power. They do not realize that issues no longer count for much in the new reality of American politics. Emotions, and the identification…
Alex Dunn If you want to understand Europe, ignore the convoluted EU and focus on the Eurovision Song Contest, argues Alex Dunn. I would imagine that for the average American, European Politics is rather like cricket: overly complicated and not terribly interesting. Well I have news for you: Europeans feel the same way. There are…
Richard Sahn Driving us ever closer to the brink of World War III and possible nuclear annihilation is the bi-partisan, seemingly all-American political position that we “never negotiate with terrorists.” That means having no diplomatic relations with the “bad guys.” “Terrorists,” we’re taught to believe, must be followers of Satan himself. (Witness Joe Biden’s “Gates…
The Contrary Perspective 