Current Events

Thumbnail image for Dr. King: The Monument, The Legacy and Today’s Wars

Dr. King: The Monument, The Legacy and Today’s Wars

September 9, 2011

It has taken a hurricane to postpone the dedication of the long-awaited monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington — the first on the Mall for an individual who is not a president, not a white man and not a war leader. King repeatedly proved he was not frightened by hurricanes, and calmly […]

Read this essay →

Are Cruel Years Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?

November 5, 2010

In 2010, with the blessing of a five to four Supreme Court vote, unlimited money from anonymous corporate sources was allowed to select candidates and call the political tune. It is hardly surprising the party best able to tap these funds scored major gains. While suspicious of repentant witches, and candidate that advocate a “Second […]

Read this essay →

“Those Damn Immigrants Again”

May 29, 2010

Immigrants have been a favorite American scapegoat for racists who wish to reach beyond their time-honored target—people of color. Waves of anti-immigration sentiment flooded the country in the 1840s [largely against Irish Catholics], in the l880s [largely against Chinese] and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries [largely against eastern and southern European Catholics […]

Read this essay →

Tortured Reasoning and Tortured Results

June 18, 2009

Almost every day new evidence emerges showing that torture was authorized at the highest levels of the Bush administration. Dick Chaney’s flurry of admissions and denials captured media attention, but in ways that only drew more attention to a host of grim crimes carried out in secret and distant places. The evidence is overwhelming. Lawrence […]

Read this essay →

“Kill Him”—A Political Chronicle

June 17, 2009

Two white skinhead believers in “white power” who planned to assassinate candidate Barack Obama in a shooting spree that also targeted African American school children have been arrested by federal authorities in Tennessee. The two men, 20 and 18, are charged with illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun, plans to rob a firearms dealer and […]

Read this essay →

President Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

March 7, 2009

On February 18th Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post published a cartoon showing two policemen identifying the dead chimpanzee they just shot as the author of the stimulus package. The day before President Obama signed his stimulus legislation. In recent memory police in the city shot Amadou Diallo, Shawn Bell and lesser known unarmed African American […]

Read this essay →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →