Morris Blau

In Memoriam

b. traven While I was out in our field working on our crop this morning, I started thinking about the meaning of Memorial Day.  I was not there, but the ferocity of the battle for Iwa Jima Island in 1945 has stayed in my mind.  7,000 Marines are buried in the cemetary there, with a…

make american great again maga

Progressives: Let’s Make American Great Again!

Stuart Lyle Was America ever really “great?”  There are many blotches on our history going back to the days before the Articles of the Confederacy: the wanton destruction of Native American communities slavery of African’s on American soil the post-Civil War poll taxes the Monroe Doctrine of subjugation of Latin America dropping an atomic bomb…

Richard Feynman

The Coronavirus Is Immune to Lies

W.J. Astore Investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, physicist Richard Feynman reached a famous conclusion: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” The COVID-19 virus is not going to be fooled with lies.  It’s not going to be fooled by a denial of medical science.  You…

The Impending Nuclear Apocalypse

Dithering on the Brink

Michael Gallagher The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced on January 23, 2020 that its symbolic “Doomsday Clock” has moved forward to 100 seconds to midnight, the closest to catastrophe that the scientists have judged the world to be at any point since its creation in 1947, at the outset of the Cold War. My…

Trump Hitler

Fake News is a Lie

Stuart Lyle In the era of information overload, it is essential to distinguish between what is misleadingly called “fake news,” and a downright lie.  They sound related, but they are not synonymous.  In fact, the relationship between the two is more complex, since calling valid reporting, i.e. “news,” fake is a lie itself. A lie…

Soleimani

Soleimani Assassination: Sowing the Wind, Reaping the Whirlwind

Richard Silverman Our president is not a religious man.  But it’s suitable to quote a verse from what his Christian allies call “the Scriptures:” For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind… I will send a fire upon his cities, And it will devour their castles. –Hosea Wreckage after U.S. drone attacked…

US Constitution

George Washington foresaw the danger of political parties to a democracy. Will Senate Republicans prove him right?

Stuart Lyle A Constitutional crisis has come… and gone – but few have noticed. Americans have great confidence in their form of government.  From an early age they are taught – and, of course, they come to believe – that the Constitution forms the unbreakable backbone of an exceptional democratic system, unmatched in the world.…