Point Made

There was an interesting article in New York Magazine last week about the NYT columnist, David Brooks. Brooks holds the NYT conservative seat previously occupied by William Safire. Brooks is also a regular on NPR programming & ‘The News Hour” opposite Mark Shields. As a committed liberal, I read Brooks with admiration and learn from him consistently, even though I don’t always agree with him. It might be that as I age I am tending to be more moderate and that may blend well with Brook’s more moderate stance on most issues and his refusal to get caught up in the wedge issues that tend to stifle any kind of conversation across the aisle. It got me to thinking about some of the other must read columnists I read and why. Why do I read Tom Friedman and not Maureen Dowd? Friedman is a graduate of my alma mater in St Louis Park High School and we probably had the same English teacher. But Tom has moved way past the pleasant pastures of Suburban Minneapolis and into the wo...

The cycle is gaining more frequency. The ups and downs of things and people we like, or even just notice, get to be more rapid than a preteen pop star. It’s cool to like one day and so yesterday the next. Democrats were high when they captured majorities in the legislative branch and the White House, only to see things come apart almost immediately. Their demise is widely expected this fall, as opponents hope that the economy doesn’t turn rapidly for the better and derail their opposition momentum. I never remember when the “what have you done for me lately” crowd held so much sway. There are the adamant Republican supply-siders who, despite recent history containing abundant truth to the contrary, still believe that less regulation, taxes, and government, in general, will solve all of our problems. We have been doing this since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, and it has accomplished three things. We have suffered through a myriad of economic failures, brought on by ...

If there is a frustration in looking at the political atmosphere, it is perpetuating lies and the ease with which that happens. All parties to this situation, whether they be the politicians themselves or the interest that carries water for them, are guilty. As I like to say, lying is not a partisan issue. It’s just a shame. I know that we all like to believe that the things we agree with are correct in themselves. They are because they sound right in our ears. They are just, and they support or justify our beliefs. Despite volumes of evidence to the contrary, a large percentage of people believe the Saddam Hussian was directly instrumental in the attack on the World Trade Center. Many people vigorously believe that President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. There is a continuing belief that President Bush engineered the attacks on 9/11 to justify starting the war in Iraq. These things began as rumors, and all have been disproved to reasonable p...

There are some things that we love to hate. Sports stars and movie stars, in general, can make normally nice people have strong, irrational feelings. I'll admit I have a strong aversion to Tom Brady and Tom Cruise. Politicians make it their business to cultivate the “We v They” atmosphere around their campaigns. But politicians, sports figures, and movie stars are people. They have press agents and handlers that control the access to them and the image they want to create. That all works well until one of their husbands sneaks out and has an affair with another woman. Or, they decide a threesome with two underage girls is appropriate. In many ways, they can earn our anger and disrespect. But what about brand names? In a recent article in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/technology/24apple.html?hpw columnist) , Miguel Helft writes that success, Apple has now become the bad guy in the technology sector. This is after being the company you loved because they w...

If you are an online reader, like I am, you undoubtedly read the reader comments attached to almost any article, whether it’s the New York Times or a local site like OnMilwaukee.com. What is amazing to me is the stuff the website editors allow to be published under their banner. I guess it’s because I’m of a generation that remembers the Letter to the Editor section of the paper where often well-written and thoughtful arguments about the day's issues were printed. I’m not saying from time to time, the editor wouldn’t throw out a weird response to an issue. You vacillated between thinking his junior high school kid took over the job of vetting the letters for a day, maybe the editor the letter would promote circulation. The publication policy of the “Comment” section of today’s press varies. Most of them state that your comments will be looked over before publication. Often you read the comments posted, and you wonder what you’d have to write before they wouldn’t pub...

The Trip into Hell and Back Report from Camp Jeff After you read this, if you fly on Mexicana Air, you are a fool. Stacy,Dan, Grace & Eli picked my wife, Maria, and I up at our condo on the East Side of Milwaukee at approximately 6:00 pm on the afternoon of February 12, 2010. Our plan was to go to Chicago and spend the night at a hotel, so we would be able to easily get to Chicago O'Hare's International airport for our Saturday 10:20 am departure to Akumal, Mexico via Cancun. After having dinner in route, at the Chancery Restaurant in Pleasant Prairie, we easily found our hotel, The Renaissance Inn and restlessly watched the Winter Olympics on TV. The room was a bit small for the six of us, but it was clean and well located. Most of all, it offered free parking while we were gone and a shuttle service to and from the airport. As planned, we were shuttled out to O'Hare International, arriving at the International Terminal at 6:30 am on Saturday morning. We came to...