The Urban Curmudgeon
growls from Manhattan
America has seen two generations of great billionaires. The first was exemplified by Andrew Carnegie and the robber barons of the post civil war era. They were avaricious, imperious and dictatorial but they created a great industrial machine on which the dominance
I knew this was going to happen as soon as I broke down and wrote something about religion last week and it did. I’m looking through the paper this morning and what are the headlines? Coptic Christians and Muslims clash in Egypt.
I’ve tried over the life of this blog to avoid the subject of religion but like Michael Corleone, they just keep dragging me in. Yes, I spent 22 years in Catholic schools before deciding that no one needs organized religion to speak
I am sick and tired of listening to the Religious Right whine about abortion and even more sick of watching their toadies in congress screw around with our budget so as to advance that agenda. They claim they want to have a
With all the trauma going on right now over the horrors in Japan, a great deal is being debated about pros and cons of nuclear power. This is one of the most important debates we will ever have in this country and
When I was a young person there was a great deal of discussion about how children arrived at the ability to process logical thought at about the age of seven. It was called the age of reason because supposedly at or about
Now that the hue and cry over WikiLeaks has subsided somewhat it’s time to take a look at what was actually done, how it was received and where it all stands in the spectrum of journalistic history. The initial reaction to the
Murder in Tuscon I was just finishing up a new blog on the responsibilities of freedom this morning when the networks were flooded by the news of US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and a number of others attending a meeting in a Tuscon
After listening to many experts, reading hundreds of opinion pieces and engaging in far too many discussions on the subject, it is more than clear that there are limited but very specific ways to conquer the recession. None is simple or easy
Was having coffee this weekend with an ultra-conservative friend. The discussion was, naturally, about the recent election and the Republican promise/threat to lower taxes and cut spending. I was naive enough to point out that as much as I hoped they were