The short answer is “no” - and Media Matters, Matthew Yglesias and others have properly taken news anchor Charles Gibson to task for suggesting that $200,000 is a “middle-class” income. But even if Gibson is wrong about “two professors” at St. Anselm College making that amount, or was wrong because, as Media Matters points […]
I remember sometime around 1994 (before the GOP congressional successes) a conservative Republican political science professor at Northern Illinois University (NIU) was speaking casually with a grad student who was hopeful for Republican prospects. The professor suggested that, while they both might abhor the Clinton Administration, when it came to Republicans actually achieving power […]
I’ve had a cold that’s knocked me out the last few days, but I wanted to share a couple of things I’ve read recently that really impressed me.
Theory
Jonathan Chait at The New Republic writes about the difference between American liberalism and conservatism (sorry subscription required). It’s really a very nice analysis, some minor quibbles […]
“The Little Man at Chehaw Station,” reprinted from the American Scholar (12/13/77) is available in a collection of Ellison’s essays, Going to the Territory - which you can pick up in paperback for around $15. Since I’m recommending this essay, from the writer of the justly acclaimed novel Invisible Man, it may sound funny […]
One theme running through Republican policy talk is that they want to give more control to individual Americans - Bush’s “ownership society.” In the next few years you will hear a lot of talk about giving people “choices” - and that “choices” are what “control” and “ownership” is all about. It sounds glamorous. […]
Working America: The Shoes Tell The Story
People are working longer hours, often without more pay. Americans have less vacation time than most workers in other industrialized nations. With staff cuts and job pressures many Americans take less and less of their vacation time - and more and more they bring their work with […]
American national holidays celebrate the people and events that define us as a nation. We celebrate the presidents who have led our nation, our soldiers who fight and have fought for our nation and those who work every day building our nation. We celebrate America’s independence, give thanks as early settlers did for […]
It’s sad that what we’re really remembering Bill Clinton for now - and maybe forever - has nothing to do with what’s good in politics. No wonder Katie and so many people think politics is “ugly”, dirty and not fit for “social events” - too many have made it about anything but working together […]
The following rhyme is one my mother taught me as a lesson about driving, but I’ve found that it applies to a lot of things in life - and I think about it from time to time. I wish Barbara Bush had instilled its lesson in young George - perhaps things would be very […]
Yesterday’s Thomas Friedman Op Ed says it extremely well.
“I want a president who can one day restore Sept. 11th to its rightful place on the calendar: as the day after Sept. 10th and before Sept. 12th. I do not want it to become a day that defines us. Because ultimately Sept. 11th is about them […]
