Guns and Sanity:

Nicholas Kristof makes the case for new gun laws with satire in today's New York Times. Comparing our two national obsessions—guns and cars—, he points out the absurdity of our national attitude toward gun ownership and its lack of regulation. I particularly like the notion of owning a tank. Can I get that with a battery powered option? And then there's the bumpers with bayonet option.

"I'm white because people tell me I'm white and I believe them." — Stephen Colbert

The vision of America as a place given by God to "white" people who tolerate folks who don't quite look like them is rapidly changing. Population growth among northern European inhabitants in the U.S. slowed to a standstill a couple of decades ago, but the growth in population among peoples of other skin tones has continued to grow, and now the groups are intermarrying without the virulent stigma of the past. Today's New York Times reports that one in seven marriages in the past couple of years has occurred between mixed racial couples.

For my money, the great revolution of my time has not been seeing a man walk on the moon, it's been the shift from the anger and fear that existed between the races to the easy acceptance of one another. Certainly, the lion has not lain down with the lamb yet, but the change in attitude and acceptance is remarkable when considered over the brief space of one man's lifetime.

Military Mentality at the Top:

Seymour Hersh may be America's greatest journalist: He broke the My Lai Massacre story in 1969 and in 2004, the Abu Ghraib prison story, both of which exposed the obscenely cruel bluntness of the military tool and the willingness of commanders to cover up responsibility. Now he's preparing a book in which he plans to reveal a mindset among the military's commanders that inevitably undermines hope for peaceful solution to America's goals in the Muslim world.

According to Hersh, military leaders see themselves as 12th century crusaders, intent on turning mosques into churches. (See Paul Farhi's story in The Washington Post.)

GOP Sells Its Soul to Big Corporations:

Life is good when your in power, the money just keeps rolling in to keep you there. Read about how corporations are dumping millions into the hands of the new Republican party congressional members, reported in today's Washington Post. It didn't take long for the power brokers to start lining these boys and girls' pockets. And you Tea Partyers thought it was about change.

How many politicians do you know who've left "public service" poorer than when they went in?

Quote of the Decade:

"This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African-American President."

— Mark Shields, PBS

Hubris Rushes In:

Now that Republican lawmakers have passed their anti-health-care measure in the the U.S. House of Representatives, conservative legislatures and governors around the country are feeling their oats. They know they can do nothing about the economy, the real reason they've won sweeping elections, so they are turning to that old social war-horse: abortions.

Erick Eckholm reports on the status of the anti-women's movement as it plays out in many state capitols around the nation in today's New York Times. The anti-abortion movement plays on superstition, fear, bigotry, and ignorance to blind the electorate to the ineptitude of governing officials to take serious action to improve the flailing economy while at the same time further fostering the right-wing's class warfare program.

Our Idiotic Gun Laws:

In the wake of the murder of six people in Arizona by a lunatic, all the focus seems to be on the vitriolic language of political commentators and politicians, unlike past gun violence discussions that focused on gun Laws. Evidently, only Gail Collins at The New York Times, seems to be willing to focus attention on the problem at hand: how did this nut come to possess a weapon whose sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

It's time to put the NRA on trial for their complicity in all the gun deaths in this country. And you can add to that much of the violence that's occurring in Mexico as well.

Kill the Shield Bill:

The recent Wikileaks have revealed how human those in government are and how willing they are to classify just about anything as secret to keep voters from finding out. Geoffrey Stone, writing on the op-ed pages of today's New York Times, makes the argument for why we should not allow government to railroad us into allowing our legislators to pass a bill that could prevent the next Pentagon Papers from coming to light and arming voters with the evidence to cause their government to act responsibly, if only after a long delay.

Should've Passed the Equal Rights Amendment when We Had the Chance:

An equal rights amendment to the constitution has been in the works since 1923, and in the seventies it came close to passage, falling short only by a couple of states. But conservatives who rely on fear, stupidity, and ignorance have managed to use the power of a minority of voters to keep women second class citizens in this country.

For the past couple of decades, advocates have been relying on the court system and the Fourteenth Amendment to seek justice for women. Unfortunately, with judges like Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, women and minorities could find their rights in jeopardy at any moment. Scalia is currently in the minority seeking to turn the U.S. into a Nazi state, but who knows what the Court will consist of in the future.

You will remember that Scalia is former Vice President Dick Cheney's shooting buddy. No, not the one that Cheney shot in the face. Scalia is too quick for that. Okay, so Scalia has never advocated Nazism or admitted publicly to his worship of Hitler, but his vision of America certainly more closely resembles a Fascist state than not. A government by the rich, for the rich, and supported by the other 90 percent of us who pay for the phenomenal healthcare he and the top ten percent receive. You and I pay this guy's salary so he can go to the opera; you and I pay a full-time wage to him so he can travel around the country receiving huge speaking fees to tell us we have no rights and he's the hanging judge who intends to keep things that way.

You gotta love it.

The Argument for Equality:

Nicholas Kristof, undoubtedly the most humane journalist in America, presents his argument for equality in an America where the dream has always been for inequality, in today's New York Times. The American dream has always been that equality of opportunity to be superior to everyone else should exist at birth.

Kristof points out all of the health issues that develop with greater inequality for those at the bottom, and lists some of the sources that inform his assertions. With 90 percent of us now at the bottom and at a growing distance from those at the top, this should be of particular concern.

The Triumph of Reaganomics: This is trickle down.

A description of how things work from The New York Times:

After being laid off from a job as a quality control supervisor at a department store warehouse and losing his house, he moved his family across the state to live with his mother. Unable to find similar work, he initially took a “soul-sucking” temporary job on an assembly line making auto parts, and is now working in a kitchen at a high school.

His hourly wage has fallen from $15 an hour at the warehouse to $10.50 an hour washing dishes and preparing food, and he has gone from having health insurance coverage for his whole family to no benefits. He, his pregnant wife and their 4-year-old son are now on Medicaid.

Naturally, if Ronny had had his way, there would be no Medicaid either.

Note: If you rob the bank, you will go to jail. If the bank robs you, the banker will receive a bailout from the government and a bonus.