The Nature of Things

Texas Governor Rick Perry likes to run around the country to all the conservative gatherings and brag about all the "tough conservative decisions" that he has made in order to keep the state budget in surplus while allowing the state to weather the storms of the recession. It's all a lie, of course. The state actually has a budget deficit of close to $30 million, and it will be extremely hard for Perry, like other Republican governors I might mention, to scapegoat public sector unions in Texas for the state's fiscal problems, since, essentially, there aren't any. At least none that have any clout. The conservatives who run our state talk about Texas as a model of small government and, in this at least, they do not lie. Let's take a look at some of the things that "small government" has given us: - Texas ranks fifth in child poverty among the 50 states. - It ranks first in the percentage of children without health insurance. - The high school grad...

The "naming of the dead" is a ritual often performed after some tragedy in which people have been killed. The names of the dead are read out in public ceremony as a way of remembering their lives. Inspector John Rebus, Ian Rankin's creation, feels that that is what he does in his murder investigations - he names the dead, excavates their lives, and makes sure they are not forgotten. The Naming of the Dead is the penultimate tale in Inspector Rebus' saga. Soon he will be forced to retire and give up the job which is the only life he has. It won't be a minute too soon for his superiors at Lothian and Borders Police. In July 2005, Edinburgh was a buzz of activity as it readied itself for the G8 conference to be held there. The most powerful people in the world would be meeting to decide the fate of much of the world for the foreseeable future. Police officers from all over the country had been commandeered to provide security for the event. They came from as fa...

Remember the shock, anger, and revulsion that we felt when the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several of her constituents, including a child, took place in January? The shooter used a Glock semi-automatic with which he was able to get off 31 shots in seconds before bystanders could subdue him. You might think that that event in Tucson would have made Arizonans leery of guns. And, furthermore, you might think that the Arizona legislature would have a very full plate considering the budget crunch, the unemployment rate, and the health care crisis in the state. Silly you! It turns out that in spite of everything that has happened Arizonans still worship at the altar of the gun and their legislature is never too busy to spend time honoring that religion. They are all set to take time away from working on solutions to the above-mentioned REAL problems to designate the Colt Single Action Army revolver as the "State Gun." I guess we should just be grateful they didn...

Here are three stories that are bouncing around in my head on this Thursday: 1. Do you watch the Sunday morning news talk shows on network television? Admittedly, I don't. I gave up on network news in all its permutations quite a few years ago. But I do read about the shows and what I've noticed in reading about them is that the people they have on as guests are almost exclusively Republicans and almost exclusively extremely conservative. I'm not the only one who has noticed this. Paul Krugman, for one, has taken note of it and he's a sometime panelist on one of those shows - I'm not sure which one. He's written in his blog about the disparity in political philosophies represented by guests on the shows. But the most glaring example of that may be this: The biggest domestic news story at the moment is what is happening in Wisconsin - the protests by unions and ordinary citizens and the Democratic senators leaving town in order to deny a quorum. So you ...

The House of Representatives voted 240-185 last week to defund Planned Parenthood and any other health care services provided through Title X . The Republicans pretend that this vote was to protect fetuses against abortion, but surely they are intelligent enough to know that Title X specifically prohibits funding for abortions. The bill that became Title X was signed into law in 1970 by President Nixon, and its purpose is to provide contraceptive information and services, cancer screening, STD testing, screening for certain blood disorders, gynecological exams and community outreach. By passing the bill that outlaws funding for all those services, the Republicans are now seeking to actually block access to services that help prevent the need for abortions, thus making an increase in abortions more likely. Just what they say they want to prevent. This is just one skirmish in the GOP's war against women and children. Yes, they've extended their war to include children, also,...

I am just old enough to remember when we used to actually celebrate two presidents' birthdays in February - Lincoln's and Washington's. Though neither man was perfect, there could be no real argument that each was deserving of a holiday in his honor. There quite simply would not have been a United States of America without Washington, and there would not be a 50-state union today had not Lincoln refused to yield and held it together through the sheer force of his determination to see that this experiment of "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" did not fail. Somewhere along the way, though, the decision-makers determined that two presidential holidays in one short month were just too many and so they compromised on a date and combined the two into one. To add insult to injury, they called the holiday Presidents' Day and made it an amalgamation of honor for all presidents. And yet there are some presidents - several, in fact - who do...