W.J. Astore A word that’s symbolic of our growing police state mentality is “lockdown.” I saw today on the news that Indiana University is in “lockdown” due to a suspect on the loose with a knife. You can lockdown a prison. But you can’t lockdown a campus as large as Indiana University in Bloomington. Nor…
b. traven Mort Sahl, a stand-up comedian before the day that being a stand-up comedian meant telling sexist and toilet jokes, was an outspoken and very funny satirist of all that was holy to the powers that be during the Cold War. In those days it was an act of political bravery just to be…
Richard Sahn I frequently drive through Eastern PA and New Jersey, usually on my way to New York City or New England. Much to my dismay, rest areas along the Interstate highways are often closed, either for repair or for no apparent reason. Now, I’ve always planned long distance car trips based on the number…
Daniel N. White Henry G. Gole, a retired U.S. Army colonel, published a fine book, Soldiering (Potomac Press, 2006) that deserves a much wider readership than it has earned to this date. Gole, son of an immigrant father from a German-speaking part of Slovenia, joined the Army in 1952 and went off to Korea as…
I started writing for TomDispatch, a remarkable contrarian site founded and edited by Tom Engelhardt, a fine editor/writer and even finer gentleman, in October 2007. My first article was on the Petraeus surge and how President Bush and his administration were hiding behind the absurdly bemedaled and beribboned uniform of that general. Tom Engelhardt’s generous…
The tradition of the citizen-soldier is still alive in this country — just look at our National Guard units. But the burden of military service is obviously not equally shared, with the affluent and famous tucked away safely at home. How many people remember that Jimmy Stewart, legendary Hollywood actor, flew dangerous combat missions in…
W.J. Astore Back in the ancient time of 2007, you may recall that color-coded threat warnings were constantly appearing on our TV screens. Those “Homeland Security threat advisory ratings” fluctuated between yellow (elevated) and orange (high). With the lone exception of the State of Hawaii in 2003, the threat ratings never dropped to blue…
W.J. Astore Bruce Fleming, an English professor at Annapolis, has a great letter at the New York Times about the government shutdown. Unlike West Point and the Air Force Academy, most instructors at Annapolis are civilians rather than serving military officers. They have been furloughed because of the government shutdown, so Navy midshipmen are no…
W.J. Astore With the odds increasing that Congress will shut down the government this coming Tuesday, I couldn’t help but think of the classic Sci-Fi film, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (the original version, of course). Remember Klaatu? He comes to earth in peace, only to be hassled, harassed, and ultimately shot by the…
W.J. Astore Ever since the attacks of 9/11/2001, the United States has actively celebrated martial virtue. We’ve portrayed our troops as heroes. Presidents have celebrated them as the best led and best trained and most effective military in all of human history. To question the wisdom of such hagiographic portrayals is to be dismissed as…
The Contrary Perspective 