W.J. Astore A juxtaposition of two stories is revealing of our sad American moment. The first involves Iraq. Fallujah, the city for which Americans fought and died (and largely destroyed) in the Iraq War is now in the hands of Al Qaeda. Let’s recall that before the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Al Qaeda didn’t…
b. traven I am not a New Yorker but I do like that city. I have lived, at one time or another, in all three of the great cities in our country, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Each has its virtues and its downsides and all now seem to be in the hands of…
Alex Dunn. Introduction by William Astore. The New Year promises much misinformation about Obamacare as “socialism.” Whatever else you can say of Obamacare, it’s not state-owned or state-provided. Rather, it relies on private, for-profit insurance companies to provide health care coverage. In short, health care in the USA remains a market-based commodity. You get what…
W.J. Astore My wife and I always watch “A Christmas Carol” around this time, the classic version with Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge. Before his redemption, Scrooge is the ultimate miser, a mean-spirited soul who refuses to give to charity since he’s already paying taxes to support prisons and workhouses. For his fellow man Scrooge…
L.N. Davout. Introduction by William Astore. Back in 1990-1991, my good friend Louis-Nicholas Davout [a pseudonym] and I debated the merits of the war to expel Iraq from Kuwait. At the time, Davout was a graduate student in Political Science at a major research university, whereas I was a captain in the Air Force teaching…
W.J. Astore Back in July, my wife and I visited the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Mass. At the shrine, there’s a simple, moving, memorial to the Sandy Hook children (see photo above). Rarely has the Biblical phrase, “Jesus wept,” been sadder or more appropriate. Christ said to suffer the children to…
Richard Sahn In contemporary American society virtually every adult citizen knows how difficult it is to obtain medical information regarding one’s spouse, parents, or other close relatives. Agencies–notably insurance companies–are adamant about not revealing even payment data if you are not the patient. Agents or receptionists working for health organizations fiercely insist they are not…
W.J. Astore If you’re in education, you’ve heard the acronym STEM. It stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. As a country, the USA is behind in STEM, so there are lots of calls (and lots of federal money available) for improvements in STEM. Usually the stated agenda is competitiveness. If the US wants to…
b. traven As a repentant psychologist with some experience in aberrant and self-delusional human behavior, I was recently struck by what passes for meaningful and heartfelt discourse in American conservative circles. The subject: Nelson Mandela. The conversants: the smarmy conservative Rick Santorum and the bullying Bill O’Reilly. Their conversation would be ludicrous if it wasn’t…
It’s Joe Bageant week at The Contrary Perspective. Bageant is best know for writing Deer Hunting with Jesus, but his second (and sadly his last) book, Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, is equally good. Bageant, a self-confessed “redneck,” worked his way into the middle class as an editor. But he never forgot his roots in…
The Contrary Perspective 