Thomas the Tank Corporatist

Last Sunday the Boston Globe ran a piece on the rise of right-wing  books for children,  “Bedtime for Little Patriots” by Tom Scocca, an author and blogger for Slate.  His funniest case is shown to the right, where the National Oak Flooring Manufacturing Association tries to convince kids that logging off forests isn’t so bad, [...]

Political Stagnation

One hears little besides politics on the news, of course, but one thing that strikes me is how little the US political system has actually changed in the last several decades.   The last new state was Hawaii in 1959.  The last constitutional amendment was the 27th in 1992, and it was a quite minor one [...]

How Nice To Have a President Who Can Speak

So even when he’s had a pretty serious political defeat, even when he looks really depressed, Obama still has the presence of mind to use an obscure term like “shellacking” in his post-midterm-election press conference. You know this is something that I think every president needs to go through, because the responsibilities of this office [...]

Rejected by the American Legal System

… for jury duty.  Geez.  I got a series of ominous notices over the last couple of months telling me to appear at the district courthouse: So I appear at 8 AM per request.  This being an important civic duty, I wear a tie.   My 14 fellow jurors are in T-shirts and shorts, perhaps because [...]

Disasters vs Development

Here in the Northeast US it’s been a damn hot summer.   In Boston  last month the average maximum was 85.8 deg F, 3.5 deg higher than the average from 1971 to 2000, and we had several heat records. We dealt with it mainly by complaining,  our usual response to weather, but also by going to [...]