Mexico’s most acclaimed writer, Carlos Fuentes, died today at age 83. He was a classic “man of letters,” producing distinguished novels, short stories, literary essays, political essays, newspaper columns, and plays. Like many of Latin America’s most distinguishe… Read full post »

That's what Paul Krugman aptly calls them. Do they ever stop coming back? No, because powerful people hope to profit by reviving them over and over again, no matter how many times they have been thoroughly debunked and refuted. Here are a few:

“Social Security is bankrupt!”

“It&rsqu… Read full post »

[Originally posted in February 2011. Reposted in respnse to Open Call: Arrested for a Petty Crime]

Colombia had a system of national identity cards, called cedulas (which an accent over the ’e' I don’t know how to place with this keyboard that I’m using) which everyone 14 years… Read full post »

 

I took a little getaway to Moab on Presidents Day Weekend. I've done a lot of hiking, backpacking, & camping in southeastern Utah for almost 30 years now, but this February winter weekend was bitterly cold. Being a confirmed fair-weather outdoorsman, I bundled up, then huddled in th… Read full post »

 

Scaring the deer..... Read full post »

Maybe I should entitle this "Catholic Bishops and Evangelical Protestants versus James Madison" Read on, and  you will see why.

(Much of  the information is the first part is derived from "What War on Religion?" by Stephanie Mencimer in a recent online version of Mother Jones… Read full post »

[this is a continuation of yesterday's post] 

In another section of the Supreme Court’s marble frieze honoring Precursors of the  American Constitutional legal tradition, we find other members of this Hall of Fame, including Confucius and Octavian/Caesar Augustus (picture… Read full post »

Last December I visited D.C. for the second time and the Supreme Court for the first time. I got an eye-opening lesson in U.S.history, especially in the origins of the Constitution and American Constititional law. My neighbors hereabouts had always told me of the divine origins of the Constitution, h… Read full post »

Annual observances of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day tend to focus almost exclusively on the struggle for juridical equality for southern blacks. Since blacks in the south can now vote, serve on juries, use the public libraries, Dr.King's cause is now portrayed as over, as … Read full post »

This is a pet peeve of mine. I keep hearing candidates, pundits and commentators repeating the ridiculous falsehood that the US Constitution forbids voters from considering a candidate’s religious beliefs (or lack of belief) in deciding who to vote for or not vote for. Or we hear one candidate… Read full post »

Not long ago, right-wing political guru Frank Luntz told the Republican Governors Association he was scared of the Occupy movement because it is “having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.” As if that were a bad thing. People are finally starting to a… Read full post »

[Update: the photos have now been transferred to Open Salon. Each of the 3 posts is entitled "Occupy Grand Junction"] 

I am unable to embed any photo images from Occupy Grand Junction into my blog here despite repeated attempts and carefully rereading and following the instructions. My… Read full post »

One of the most succinct signs, first Occupy gathering, Grand Junction, Colorado, October 15, 2011.
 

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Signs of the Times, October 15, 2011, a sunny day in Colorado!
 

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RSS feed is transferring these in weird order, but here they are. Grand Junction, Colorado, Saturday, October 15: first 'Occupy" gathering in Western Slope Colorado!

 

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What will it lead to? Will it last? Will this movement grow and evolve, spreading across the country? Where is it going? Where will it end?

I don’t know. As I once wrote in a professional court report to a judge, my crystal ball doesn’t work any better than anyone else’s.&… Read full post »

 

Great book. This 1993  book (that is my own well-thumbed, discolored, and dog-eared copy pictured above) and the Hare Psychopathy Checklist for use by clinicians  established this Canadian professor of psychology as this generation’s leading expert on… Read full post »

While I was in Adelaide in  the spring of 2008, I had to refill my expired  prescription for lisinopril, a common blood pressure medication. I went to a medical clinic in Norwood, on the retail street called The Parade, a street of… Read full post »

This is how I remember it. Perhaps I should call this a portion of my “narrative.”

After the dramatic, across-the-board landslide Democratic victory in the 2008 elections many in the  mainstream media were openly speculating on whether the Republican Party could even survive let alon… Read full post »

This may be unusual but I am posting solely for the purpose of referring readers to another post, this one about what leadership means.

Gene Lyon’s recent  column on Salon entitled “The Perils of Obama’s Lazy Narrative” includes a hyperlink to an even better, more significan… Read full post »

At age 76, In the  year 1568,   Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who had been a captain in the army of Hernan Cortes, and the last survivor of the  Spanish conquistadors  who  overthrew the Aztec Empire in 1521, eulogized his fallen comrades thusly:

“Where are now my companions? They have fall… Read full post »

These observations should be filed under “things that I should no longer be shocked or surprised by but still am.”

Christine O’Donnell:  what a childish person she is!  She, Sarah Palin, and others of their ilk so often behave like extremely wilful, childlike  sp… Read full post »

Moon House is believed to have been constructed in the 13th century by Ancestral Pueblans, that  is,  the ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians of northern New Mexico. The whole area was abandoned no later than 1300 A.D.  Protected by the natural overhang, the ruins have survived over 7… Read full post »

Barack Obama is looking more and more like America’s Neville Chamberlain.

Once more, a craven, snivelling,  abject surrender is pronounced a “victory.”

“See, the Tea Party members are reasonable people. If you just abandon the interests of the American people, lick their… Read full post »

The simplest,  most obvious facts are often the ones that are overlooked, suppressed, forgotten, or ignored in news reports.

All we need to do to really understand what’s happening is look at the larger historical context, and see the false premises on which the current pseudo debt &l… Read full post »