Guest Post by Morbo A poll released last week revealed, once again, that Americans like religion. In results that surprised absolutely no one, a solid majority of Americans told pollsters they consider faith important. Another key finding, that people in Western Europe are less religious than Americans, also restated the obvious. The poll, conducted by […]
Thank God Friday’s Over! My respect for bloggers has gone up greatly after trying to get today’s items written, proofed, graphs made, operating unfamiliar software from afar, unable to scream “Help” to the real Carpetbagger. Just after 6am PST (my zone) I was all set to click “publish” on the first item. It seems to […]
Guest Post by Ed Stephan. Carpetbagger asked me to expand on my post about the Italian economist/sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). There I talked about the cycle Pareto said most governments went through: obtaining power through actual or promised problem-solving, followed by increasing concern about merely staying in power. Since problems aren’t getting solved, governments turn […]
Guest Post by Ed Stephan. Hillary Clinton recently stuck her neck out to propose looking for some “common ground” on the issue of abortion, actually going a step beyond her husband’s stated goal of making abortion “safe, legal and rare”. The GOP, which these days could serve as a prime example for Eric Hoffer’s brilliant […]
Guest post by Ed Stephan. Nearly all news media now tend to “tabloidize” events — not just pointing with alarm to unusual events, but also seeing everything only from the point of view of how events affect an individual. A story about unemployment may begin with “Mary looks fretfully at what may be her last […]
Guest Post by Ed Stephan. File this under both “analysis” and “tirade”, mostly the latter. Shortly after President Clinton reneged on his campaign pledge to admit gays to military service, I wrote this letter-to-the-editor for our local paper, the Bellingham [WA] Herald (Gannett): 30 May 1993 To the Editor: Fundamentalists who favor banning gays from […]
Guest post by Ed Stephan. In testimony May 26 before the Immigration Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (chair John Cornyn, R-TX), Princeton University professor Douglas Massey, at the invitation of ranking Democrat Ted Kennedy, cited two decades of research which point to a fundamental contradiction in U.S.-Mexico relations: On the one hand, […]
Guest post by Ed Stephan. The White House seems to be happy with what’s going on in Iraq during recent weeks. Bush, augmenting his remarks with a Pat-Robertson’s semi-giggle, tells us he’s “pleased”. Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Bush said he was pleased with progress in Iraq more than two years after he […]
I’m going to be away from my computer today, so I won’t be able to post. However, for your reading pleasure, I’ve arranged for Ed Stephan, a Carpetbagger regular, to sit in for me. Ed, in addition to being a regular contributor to my comments section, is a recently retired professor at Western Washington University […]
Guest Post by Ed Stephan. Hillary Clinton recently stuck her neck out to propose looking for some “common ground” on the issue of abortion, actually going a step beyond her husband’s stated goal of making abortion “safe, legal and rare”. The GOP, which these days could serve as a prime example for Eric Hoffer’s brilliant […]