October 2012

I. Personal Reflections: “Cassandra complex” acknowledged… Over the roughly 15 years that I have been obsessively (more or less) following news and politics, I’ve gone from being alarmed at the metastasizing corruption and polarization in the American body politic to being convinced that the United States of America is essentially committing economic and societal suicide on the world stage (with… Read More »Personal Reflections and Practical Advice for Election Day — Including an Endorsement!

[Before reading today’s blog, please devote a few minutes to the following brief excerpts from today’s broadcast of DemocracyNow! featuring two impressive candidates for the U.S. presidency, the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein and the Justice Party’s Rocky Anderson, each responding to last night’s presidential debate — in real time, thanks to Amy Goodman’s innovative “expanded” coverage.  Discussing the economy,… Read More »Election 2012: Marginalized Voices vs. the Establishment’s “Choice”

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been finishing up an art project I began in July, after my wife and I returned from the first ever Johnston summer seminar: Ovid’s Metamorphoses (my post-seminar blog can be read here).  The piece features caricatures of seminar participants transformed into characters from Ovid’s ~2,000 year-old masterpiece, and I hope my readers will enjoy… Read More »Art project completed: a seminar transformed!

Last week delivered another grim marker in the decline of a once great nation: the first of the 2012 presidential debates (if my response is a tad belated, please note that I had to wait until I stopped vomiting). I have listened to Debate #1 in its entirety — twice: once in the standard format, and again with Amy Goodman’s… Read More »Three Poor Players Strut/Fret Their 90 min. upon the Stage; In Other News, Proof that Intelligent Debate Exists

[The following comment was originally authored in response to a HuffingtonPost article about California’s Proposition 32, the Koch-funded proposition that masquerades as an initiative to get “special interest” money out of politics but is actually about crushing unions — decimating organized labor’s ability to raise funds while leaving unscathed the electioneering activities of corporations.] What’s the matter with Kansas, indeed!… Read More »Revisiting the .1%’s bait and switch — Romney or Obama, it’s time for austerity and union-busting!