I sat and stared at the screen, somewhat stunned to read that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the legendary German lyric baritone, passed away a few days ago, at the age of 86. The first thought was, Oh no! He was such an artist! Then the second thought was a self-reminder… Read full post »

I suspect that, for a lot of Americans, watching Mitt Romney as he has campaigned himself into the Republican nomination for the presidency, it's been bemusing to study this man's seemingly endless number of gaffes - not to mention his high degree of truth telling problems - in his… Read full post »

It is as American as the 7^th inning stretch; as much a part of our self-portrait as Washington Crossing the Delaware, or Rosie the Riveter and G.I. Joe.  Somewhere around half of us see ourselves as self-made or self-becoming and that, if only we work hard, educate ourselves, play… Read full post »

At first I didn't pay it much attention but the dust was so thick that I couldn't avoid it any longer. Hilary Rosen's comment about Ann Romney “never having worked a day in her life” was jumped on by Romney-ites as though Michael Jordan had been given a… Read full post »

Günter  Grass, the 1999 Nobel Prize winning German writer, sculptor, playwright and illustrator has now been officially made an official persona non grata in Israel. He is not welcome to visit. In fact, he has been banned from entering the country at all by Israel's ultra-orthodox… Read full post »

  The doggedness of old habits

The old saying that old habits die hard is a good thing to think about these days. It used to be that post-war American foreign policy was reasonably understandable, even by a young 7^th grader in the mid-1950's like myself. The American world/… Read full post »

It appears the Republican Party is making an all out, full frontal assault on women as we get into high gear this election season. The bullet points below were cut and pasted from various places around the net.

 

Nothing could more obvious – and to a progressive, encouraging. Barack Obama has managed, particularly since the disaster of the 2010 midterm elections, to box in the GOP into narrower and narrower confines. And in doing so he has opened up a 15 point lead in some polls over his/…

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My great aunt, great grandmother, great grandfather and grandfather, about 1903

 

There is a city in eastern Turkey called Harput. It's not much more than a remnant of a middle sized city. It was from there that my grandfather, Ohannes Peshekerian, his brother, Avadis, and a/… Read full post »

I need a new religion. I've come to the conclusion that American-style Christianity sucks. I've just recently realized that that the one I (pretty much) was a member of has decided that they really, really want to make everyone else think like they do - and if you don't,… Read full post »

In one of the strangest twists in American political history, the Republican party, after just two primary contests and a so-called caucus in Iowa has winnowed its presidential offerings to two of the unlikeliest persons imaginable. Neither of the two engender even a hint of enthusiasm amon… Read full post »

 

As he has been pursuing for the last 6 years, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney may finally be getting close to the the nomination he has, up to now, fruitlessly sought: to get himself elected the 45^th President of these United States. Yet, in an almost cruel/… Read full post »

  Is John Boehner (R-OH) long for his job as Speaker of the House? Is he an example of the Peter Principle in politics, which is to say that he's reached the point of being  ineffective? This man, the 3rd in line to the Presidency may be on… Read full post »

 

This week President Obama, in keeping a 2008 campaign promise, declared the war in Iraq to be over. The last American soldier deployed to that sad country will be home for Christmas. The administration has stated that Iraq's time to become a working republic, to take responsibility fo… Read full post »

All you owners of real property which has a note attached to it, pay attention! And, if you're in foreclosure or about to be foreclosed on,  pay close attention.

So far, it's been a pretty quiet but a potential – no, let us say here,… Read full post »

 

 

The autumn fog is as thick as porridge. It is a mind numbing, disorienting vail of gray-white, so thick that one cannot see beyond 20 yards. In the hours before sunlight the quiet is almost deafening. I take my first cup of coffee outside to the… Read full post »

 October 7, 2011

Dear Senator Murray and Congresswoman Pelosi:

This morning in the mail I received a solicitation for money from the respective campaign committees which you each chair, along with a questionnaire asking for my opinion on a range of issues. (I get them every week, it… Read full post »

Call him lucky, call him smart, call him a consummate pol but whatever noun you choose to define him with, the potential for the current White House incumbent to face an opponent with broad appeal to the opposition party has not emerged and, with only 30 days left for someone to… Read full post »

 

This last weekend I spent at my sister’s summer home at Donner Lake in California’s Sierra Nevada. It was a wonderful weekend in terms of visiting with her and her husband, seeing a little bit of the Sierras, enjoying good food, wine and conversation. I’m typically… Read full post »

"I love that smell of the emissions!" --Sarah Palin, at a motorcycle rally in Washington, D.C., where she rode in on a Harley, May 29, 2011

 

Ordinarily I don’t pay much attention to women’s breasts anymore. The days of inordinate fascination with them have more or less pass… Read full post »

 

Like one of those kid’s punching bag clowns hung on a piece of spring steel which refuse to go down no matter how hard you hit it, Ron Paul, the bellweather Libertarian doctor/congressman takes the licking but keeps on, well, ticking away at his doctrine that government… Read full post »

As most of the world breathes a sigh of relief that Muammar Gaddafi is now (nearly, but inevitably) history, the great question remains: Now what?

Libya,  which has been repeatedly colonized for 2500 years, starting with the ancient Phoenicians, continued under Greeks, Romans, Vand/… Read full post »

It didn’t have to be this way. No, it didn’t; but there are no more lions among the sheep. Reason and comity have taken leave of the body politik over the last 30 or so years, to the point where the elected leaders are now the followers. They… Read full post »

 

His campaign rhetoric stirred the nation -  exhausted and broke from six years of war and in the throes of a financial collapse not seen in four generations - into electing, for the very first time, a non-white president of the republic. Young and old alike believed… Read full post »

Rupert Murdoch’s current problems in the UK and - through a chain of chess piece executives who work for him on both sides of the Atlantic - the United States, point out just how tenuous and ephemeral our notions of a vigorous and healthy free press have become… Read full post »