The Nature of Things

One of the most maddening things about this whole interminable and wholly unnecessary squabble about raising the debt ceiling has been the mainstream media's insistence on a false equivalency of the two sides. When covering the story, they will invariably insist that both Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame for the debacle, the inability of the government to function.  This is categorically untrue, and so-called journalists do a great disservice to the country and betray their professional ethics when they choose to report the story in that way. In fact, the debt ceiling crisis has been entirely manufactured by the tea party-led Republicans whose goal is quite simply to destroy government, to do away with all regulation, oversight, consumer and public health protections, and with the social safety net that has made life more comfortable for the poor and for the middle class.  Their constituents are not the poor and the middle class.  Their constituents are the...

Tired of hypocrisy and mendacity?  Tired of your so-called representatives who don't represent you, who, in fact, don't even listen to you? Tired of people who ostentatiously wear flag pins on their lapels but don't give a flying...fig about the country and the people in it (except for those who give them millions of dollars in campaign contributions)?  In other words, tired of politics?  Then take a break.  Enjoy a little cat action - and a couple of other animals as well.  Trust me, it is good for what bugs you!

It starts with a snuff film of a teenage girl being strangled with a blue scarf. Shocking enough, but more shocking still is where it is found - on the cell phone of the step-grandson of the governor of Washington. It was found by the governor herself who then contacts her attorney general and soon J.P. Beaumont and his partner in life and on the job, Mel Soames, are being assigned to investigate.   J.P. and Mel are members of the attorney general's Special Homicide Investigation Team - that's right S.H.I.T. It gets worse. Their boss is named Harry Ignatius Ball, or Harry I. Ball. Those jokes aside, their mission is not at all funny. They are charged with investigating murders that are of a sensitive nature, and this apparent murder certainly fits the bill.   It gets even more sensitive when the grandson, Josh, is found hanging from a makeshift rope of ties in his room on the third floor of the governor's mansion. He has committed suicide, but why? Did he kill the girl and ...

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart took on the tragedy in Norway and the response to it by the right-wing echo chamber in this country as exempli- fied by Fox News. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c In the Name of the Fodder www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook Yes, who in his right mind would ever associate the Norwegian assassin's actions with Christianity?  Well, only anyone who had read his manifesto or read a description of it; anyone who had seen his description of himself as a crusader for Christianity. But, of course, with Fox News, it is all about the victimhood and we know who the victims are, don't we?  That's right - it's the right-wing nutosphere.  Never mind - Fox News is here to call out all those mean old liberals who beat up the poor little innocent fascists - er, conservatives. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c GOP - Special Victim...

The Spellman family is a cast of quirky, iconoclastic characters, who comprise a San Francisco private investigations firm. The main - and perhaps quirkiest - character is Isabel Spellman, older daughter of the family who is a talented investigator. She has an older brother, David, who is perfect and not a member of the family firm. He is a lawyer. There is also a younger, 14-year-old sister, Rae, who is decidedly not perfect and whose greatest talent seems to be for blackmail. She's able to achieve her blackmailing aims because she spies on her family and learns their guilty secrets. In fact, one wonders how the Spellman Investigations firm makes a profit because most of each Spellman's time seems to be spent spying on, tailing, and eavesdropping on other Spellmans. Finally, Isabel ("Izzy") has had enough and wants out. She is promised her release by her parents/employers if she will take one last case, a very cold case. It is a 15-year-old disappearance that...

When the world turns black, when petty politicians think more about their own reelections than the good of the country and the world, when madmen turn their guns on innocent children attending summer camp and their cheering section on right-wing radio tries to excuse them, when the earth continues to heat up and all hope seems futile, there's always baseball.  During the dog days of summer - and they all seem like dog days this year - the most perfect ballgame ever invented by humans offers respite and relief from days of unrelentingly bad news.  This season, though, for Astros fans like myself, even baseball hasn't given much relief. The Astros as of today and for most of the season are and have been possessors of the worst record in Major League Baseball.  Their current record is 33-69.  They are 36 games under .500.  This is territory that this franchise has not been in since John F. Kennedy was president.  They could well finish this season with the wor...

I was listening to a discussion on NPR this morning about the rise of neo-Nazism in Europe.  The discussion, of course, was current because of the killings in Norway by an extremist Christian, Muslim-hating Norwegian who wanted to bring about a revolution that would "purify" the population and stop the inflow of immigrants from the Near East.  The rise of neo-Nazism in many European countries has been a concern for awhile and has led to the election of some fairly right-wing governments in many countries, including the United Kingdom.  What the participants in this discussion failed to mention (at least during the time that I was listening) is that this is not just a European phenomenon.  Neo-Nazism is very much a modern American phenomenon as well. You need only look at the state legislatures and governors around the country that were elected last year to see the extent of this philosophy's hold on American imaginations.  In states throughout the country that a...