The issue of voter suppression has exploded during the past month or so because of some flagrant suppression efforts in Georgia where the Republican candidate Brian Kemp, now the Secretary of State, but running for higher office, has put more than 53,000 voter registration applications in limbo. As Ari Berman says in his article How…
This morning’s New York Times editorial page carried this article by Jennifer Finney Boylan of Banard College, Colombia University in which she quotes Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): “The greatest liar hath his believers: and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it hath done its work, and there is no…
“A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension.” BACK
In the entire history of the United States Supreme Court only one justice has been a) nominated by a president who didn’t win the popular vote b) confirmed by a majority of senators who collectively won fewer votes in their last election than did the senators who voted against that justice’s confirmation Yes, of course,…
It’s hard to tell by looking at today’s headlines in the news media, but America is changing, and as always, it’s changing the most for the next generations. How that change looks, and how it happens, is largely up to people with vision. Not always powerful people in the traditional use of the word “powerful”,…
As the midterms approach, America’s electronic voting systems are more vulnerable than ever. Why isn’t anyone trying to fix them? I suggest you read this excellent article in today’s (2018-09-30) New York Times. In light of the Russian meddling in our 2016 Presidential elections, this issue–the security of our voting process–which I’m sure most of…
aph·o·rism [ˈafəˌrizəm] NOUN a pithy observation that contains a general truth, a statement of some general principle, expressed memorably by condensing much wisdom into few words. Examples: “The child is father to the man.” (William Wadsworth) “Power worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue.…
Years ago, in the spring of 1989, I was reading a new book I’d just bought by one of my favorite historians, Peter Brown, Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University, and scholar of Late Antiquity. I was reading, The Body and Society, Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, and I’d just begun…
“If I were asked . . . to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people [the Americans] ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.” Apparently de Tocqueville was a more perceptive man in 1835, when America was still a new democracy, than many men are…
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murder’s itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” But we must also remember: this was written in a letter from Adams to John Taylor, 17 December 1814. America had not yet established itself to the Western end of the continent,…