Tag: politics
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Israel and Hamas-a Very Difficult American Issue-But Also Very Important
By now nearly everyone who is the slightest bit interested knows all the basic facts. Hamas is a terrorist organization which has brutally run Gaza for more than a decade and has never shown mercy or understanding, or any “give” except the opportunistic kind, in their dealings with others. They are as brutal with the…
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Time to Make a Choice
I have already communicated the fact that I watched the debate last week with increasing depression and disappointment as it went on. The President, far from being at his best, was closer to his worst. He looked haggard and worn, he spoke slowly and somewhat indistinctly at times and worst of all, he sometimes made…
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A Debate and an Election, Then(Maybe)Three Big Messes–a Brief Lecture on British and American Politics
The next British Parliamentary Election is set for July 4. No, I don’t think it was done as a joke or an exercise in irony. Nonetheless the date is striking. Our(ostensible)date of Independence may become Britain’s date of dependence on a new kind of politics. First Past the Post(FPTP) voting may yield, eventually, to something…
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Republicans and Isolationism–Twists and Turns
Nearly everyone speaking or writing about the current US Presidential campaign has at some point noted foreign policy or at least our relations with other nations as a part of it. It usually does not receive the same attention as border security and immigration(though they’re related), inflation and the overall apparent dissatisfaction of much of…
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American Attitudes and Capital Punishment
The Vietnam War was the first war which brought to the American people on the home front what really was going on; this meant that even those most reluctant to look at the world honestly were hard pressed not to admit the brutality in it. This was largely because of pictures, mostly TV news coverage, which…
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Where do we go from here?
This is the question left to the country after the NH primary. It settled some things but left others still in doubt. Like Fareed Zakaria on CNN news I have a “take” on some things and here is mine on NH and more broadly, the Presidential contest after NH How is Trump doing with his party?–Pretty well,…
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Long evening but short answers
It was a long evening if you chose to watch last night. I chose not to after the first reports established that Trump was going to win easily, something about 90% of the serious viewers were expecting. I might have watched a little more if the combination of a long, cold, hard day and a couple of…
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Leader AWOL, competitors nervous
The last debate begore the primary/caucus season begins is tonight in Iowa. Far from the stage full of Republican hopefuls we saw a few months ago, we are now down to two, one time SC Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and FL Gov Ron DeSantis. Not that there aren’t others who are still trying. The most notable…
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The Poet of the Mean Streets
“Small Mercies” by Dennis Lehane, Copywright 2023, Harper Collins, 299 pgs It is not easy, at first anyway, to classify Dennis Lahane as a writer. He’s not quite a mystery writer though his books are often whodunits of a sort along with other things. “Crime writer” would likely be a better description because he nearly…
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A Higher Mountain
It was less than a week ago when I finished a blog here in my local library where I sit right now and sent it out to be published. I did not require a lot of time after that to find out that my article was already obsolete when it hit the email sites. The…
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