Our Mad Mad World - Category: Opinions    
 Communal Capitalism12 comments
picture13 Jun 2009 @ 23:10
Here's an excerpt from one of my novels, In the Land of the Dacks, for you to chaw on, if so inclined. It deals with basic economics and hopefully is thought provoking....... The scene takes place in a penal colony in Dackland where our hero, a young American, skeptically questions his Dack host..... A man nicknamed Fisch because he smells like a fish. There isn't much in the way of hygiene in the Colony.

[link]

"What is this Communal Capitalism of yours?" I finally asked. "What is this system you're always talking about? I never heard of it before. And what makes it so superior to the American way?"  More >

 One Writer's Oddyssey4 comments
picture6 Mar 2009 @ 17:33
"When I was young it [writing novels] was the most exciting thing you could do... It was more exciting to be a major novelist than to be a movie star. That was then. Today you could line up 10 major novelists and three teenagers would run them down in order to shake a movie star's hand, male or female. No, the fact of the matter is that, the novel may be on the way out. You know, essentially from now we may be as the only people who practice it. We are the kind of people who write five act verse plays in iambic pentameter."

Norman Mailer, speaking at the New York Public Library, June 27, 2007.

The Eager Muse - Like the aging fat man who's married to a beautiful young wife, the artist is sometimes the last to know.

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I've created a new web page which includes information about several novels I've written. The following is an explanatory essay accompanying it.

To go to the web page: [link]  More >

 Not Peace but Apartheid94 comments
picture15 Jul 2008 @ 23:06
The piece below mentions Jenin. I was in Europe at the time of Jenin and CNN carried nonstop coverage. I can still remember seeing the blasted out site on the set at night, the leveled rubble. And then there was that man in a wheelchair who was crushed by a tank.  More >

 Is it time?31 comments
picture24 Mar 2008 @ 20:50
For Hillary Clinton to step aside? To “suspend” her candidacy?

A political analyst parsing the race the other night on TV claimed Hillary would have to acquire at least 64% of all the remaining delegate vote to top Obama. That numerically she can not win the primary race without a miracle.  More >

 Writers Take Sides3 comments
picture4 Mar 2008 @ 21:24
Way back in 1938, when Spain was the central front against fascism, the League of American Writers sent out a questionnaire to several hundred American writers. The question they asked was simple: “Are you for, or are you against Franco and fascism? Are you for, or are you against the legal government and the people of Republican Spain?” There were more than 400 responses and only one writer sided with Franco. There were seven who remained neutral. The rest sided with the Spanish Republic.

Many of the respondents wrote brief comments and essays accompanying their responses which were put into an interesting booklet titled, “Writers Take Sides.” Of course, most of their comments related to current world events and the war in Spain. But several authors also included their thoughts on the nature of fascism.  More >

 Citizen McCain28 comments
picture4 Feb 2008 @ 19:45
Has anyone seen John McCain on TV recently? He becomes violently passionate when he discusses "Islamo fascism," claiming the US under his presidency will never accept "defeat." He even beat his chest in one performance. As the piece below describes he still even thinks we should have 'won" the Vietnam War.

This is a scary guy. One whose finger on the button would make me very nervous since it appears he may actually use it. We live in a time of much fear and paranoia. McCain, I think, will only heat things up.

Yes, old mild mannered John McCain becomes quite violently passionate over the existential threat the Muslim hordes present us. And appears to genuinely believe "if we don't fight them there we'll have to fight them here."  More >

 The King of Mountebanks?30 comments
picture31 Jan 2008 @ 19:53

If the Devil is at play here, and he is setting us up for the one two punch, then Barack is his main man. The perfect front.

For after eight years of George Bush, of nightly seeing a President of the United States on television smirk, lie, mangle the language, and smile confidently and broadly as countless die, all at his hand, the dignified portrait of noble and eloquent sobriety Obama brings us is the perfect contrast.  More >

 "Yes We Can"66 comments
picture14 Jan 2008 @ 19:59
Is he for real? John Kerry seems to think so, closely echoing his message when he endorsed him the other day in South Carolina.

Is he, Barack Obama, a new Lincoln or FDR or is he merely another Huey Long? He is, undoubtedly, one of the best political orators who has come along in a long, long time. He is, in fact, an extraordinary orator.  More >

 An Easy Solution Missed15 comments
picture21 Nov 2007 @ 23:59
Recent estimates of how much this war in Iraq will cost us surpass one trillion dollars.

One trillion dollars.  More >

 Bringing Back the Fairness Doctrine19 comments
picture6 Oct 2007 @ 20:17
Now that the Democrats control the Congress the possibility of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine has been raised.

By Democrats, of course. And by liberals and those who feel mute and unheard today over the nation’s airwaves on the left. Certainly not by the rightwing.

When Ronald Reagan was president he put an end to the Fairness Doctrine by simply signing an executive order. Handing the nation’s airwaves (which are the property of the American people) over to corporate America was that simple.  More >



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