The Nature of Things

Many Americans like to think of our country as being "exceptional" - by which they seem to mean that it was divinely created and that we are outside of history and are not subject to its laws. That's all a lot of hooey of course. We are very much a part of history and, while the people who founded this country were certainly exceptional and enlightened far beyond the times in which they lived, we seem to have fallen very far from that ideal today, to the point where we no longer even honor science and learning. We seem to be turning in upon ourselves and refusing to see the world as it really is. But how does that world, looking back, see us? There is a clue from a recent report from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The committee looked at seven different countries and analyzed the state of their racial relationships. One of the countries reviewed was the United States. While the committee did find several positive things to prais...

I don't often find myself in complete agreement with one of Maureen Dowd's columns. In fact, most of the time I find her pretty annoying, especially when she writes about the Clintons, which she often does. She seems to have an unreasoning hatred of the pair, not unlike many in the right-wing noise machine. She can be particularly shrill and unreasonable when writing about Hillary, so when I see that the Clintons are the subjects of one of her columns, I manage my blood pressure by simply not reading it. But today, I have to admit she has a good point and I can only hope that the current occupant of the White House might pay attention to her. The theme of today's column is the White House's race problem and her point is that Obama needs more black people in the White House. Specifically, he needs more black people from the South, people who have experienced the worst of racism and have overcome it. In other words, he needs people like Shirley Sherrod. Obama's ...