Gadfly

A bloody stage-four gun-culture cancer

February 28th, 2018

The deafening sounds of silence
What have you heard from the Trumpistan gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, and members of The Best Congress Money Can Buy since the Parkland shooting?

I thought of Simon and Garfunkel’s great song “The Sounds of Silence” while waiting for responses. Lines in the third stanza stand out: “No one dared disturb the sound of silence/ ‘Fools, said I,’ You do not know/ Silence like a cancer grows.”

Where was Wayne LaPierre and the NRA? He…

Brave new world, part two

February 21st, 2018

When will we learn to share wealth?
Last week I wrote about how many predictions made by Aldous Huxley in his 1932 book "Brave New World" were beginning to come true in 2018.

When I read the toll to travel on Interstate 66 in northern Virginia last Tuesday morning reached $47.25 during rush hour, I thought another premise of Huxley was coming true.

When Corky and I lived in Washington during 1954-55 while I went through Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia, I commuted 70 miles…

Is it the end of liberal education?

February 14th, 2018

Do we finally have ‘beauteous mankind in a brave new world?’
British philosopher and writer Aldous Huxley used a line of Miranda’s speech in Shakespeare’s play "The Tempest" as the title for his book about the future published in 1932: “O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in it!”

Two recent news stories reminded me of why I taught his novel to my senior classes in English literature at Fargo…

A sitting monument

February 7th, 2018

Finally, a fitting monument to the One Percent—a gold toilet
The Middle East has been a human maelstrom for thousands of years because of tribes fighting one another for the four necessities of life. If you wonder about it, study why the region has the highest unemployment rates in the world and presently has 29 million children living in extreme poverty. Many millions of their parents live in abysmal conditions, unable to supply decent housing, water, or nutritious food.

Poverty is the…

Christians who raise Cain

January 31st, 2018

Of witches, goblins, snakes, and other malefactors In this weird world we live in we have religions where worshippers beat themselves bloody with chains and other sharp instruments; true believers stick knives, swords, and other sharp objects through mouths, cheeks, tongues; and snake idolizers wrap themselves with poisonous snakes, hum hymns, and do a hokey dance. Sometimes they die because the rattlers and water moccasins didn’t like their shaving lotion.

Some are Christians who use the Bible to come up with bizarre ideas. We have…

Does the Bible really tell me so?

January 26th, 2018

Helen Grace James

According to modern scientific research, over 1500 animal and human species have different gender identities while evolving. We have presently identified at least 60. Facebook offers its clients the right to identify up to 50 different gender identities.

Many countries in the world have approved same-sex marriage, military participation by gays, and some recognize third genders on birth certificates. When King Donald decreed that our military would no longer accept…

Health care: Privilege of class or right of citizenship?

January 17th, 2018

Corky had a knee replaced in late December and she has been diligently doing the physical therapy connected with the rehab. Although the operation was done in Fargo, I imagine the procedure would have cost about the same if it had been done in Minnesota.

I haven’t asked, but I do wonder if it cost Medicare and our supplementary insurance $6,200 or $47,000. If we use free market principles at the grocery store, do we pay as little as 88 cents or as much as $7.04 for a head of…

Old RVs parked among Bel Air mansions

December 27th, 2017

The homeless love those rich ZIP Code dumpsters full of goodies

The Grand Old Party of Predators, Pedophiles, and Parsimonious Pricks (GOPPPP) has finally reached its Nirvana, the perfect place of peace and happiness, by passing a tax bill that will enrich their owners in Bel Air and rich ZIP Codes scattered around the richest country in the world.

But the recent fire that burned many of those new mansions in Bel Air signaled that the homeless and the poor like to sleep near those wide…

Bump stocks and muskets

December 20th, 2017

What will it take to change our gun laws? Twenty first graders torn apart by 100 Bushmaster rounds couldn’t do it.

Would 100 first graders torn apart by 500 bump stock rounds fired by an AR-15 do it? Would four senators and representatives from Congress torn apart by .45 caliber rounds from a 100-round drum magazine on an old Thompson do it?

So far we have had only two representatives in Congress wounded by shooters, Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Gabby Giffords of Arizona. What will…

Dreamers are having nightmares

December 13th, 2017

Cartoon courtesy of Daily Trump Cartoon What the hell is happening to this country?

For a long time the United States has been considered to be the richest and most powerful country in the world. Our president has been the leader of the free world for decades because of the combined intellectual, philosophical, and economic power of the U.S. and European countries. Until now.

After ten months of trying to deal with a pathological liar and fulltime nutcase in our White House, European leaders have anointed Angela Merkel of…