Gadfly

Dog Collars and Pitchforks

April 1st, 2015

It’s Time to Sharpen the Pitchfork Tines

The Walt Disney Corporation just raised the price of a day pass to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando to $105. This increase was made while one-half of our population is in poverty, and two-thirds of our families do not have savings enough to cover a $500 repair bill or a $1,000 emergency room charge. Over half do not have a month’s income on hand, and their retirement funds represent about four months of income.

In the last six years the median…

Animal Speech

March 25th, 2015

Will We Ever Parlay With Pachyderms?

According to the Bible—and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution—Adam and relatives of Pithecanthropus Erectus have dominion over all of the animals on earth. If Adam and Hannibal the Cannibal are the smartest of all the creatures on earth, why haven’t we learned the language of other animals? We usually try to teach other animals our language. Rarely do we try to learn theirs. In the song “Talk To The Animals” written and sung by Bobby Darin,…

Religion and Science

March 18th, 2015

Witches In Tanzania, The Yazidi Blues, And Living Lives Of Quiet Desperation

It has come to pass that when a minority religious group rules a majority religious group disaster will occur. Look at conditions in Syria.

About 200,000 Syrians have been killed in the two years of that civil war and millions have chosen to be refugees in neighboring states such as Turkey and Jordan. Former English Prime Minister Tony Blair, who joined with former President George W. Bush to create a similar…

Truth: Do I Kill The Guy With The Rifle — Or Ask Him To Tea?

March 11th, 2015

The Tragedy: A Country At War And A Public Who Is Not

We have been at war for 13 years. Presently out of 320 million people we have 1.4 million on active military duty and another 850,000 in the reserves. At the very end of World War II we had 16 million in uniform, about 10% of the population. Most able-bodied men served along with a few women. Almost every family was familiar with the armed forces. Now we have over four million people living on the country’s 2.1 million farms. In…

Good Old Country Love

March 4th, 2015

Yes, Rudy, It Was A “Horrible Thing To Say” — And Horribly Stupid!

Rudy Giuliani says, although Barack Obama was raised by a white mother and white grandparents, he “doesn’t believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.” Yes, Rudy, it was a horrible thing to say — and horribly stupid. I found out through this kerfuffle that Rudy…

Blood—And Lots Of It

February 25th, 2015

Soaking The Sands, Streets, And Oceans With Blood

The Islamic State (ISIS) video graphically shows the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians by knife-wielding Muslim believers on a Libyan beach, soaking the sands with blood. The adult human body contains on average about 5.5 quarts of the life-giving fluid, so here went another 23 gallons of the red stuff wasted in the name of religion and Muslim testosterone. It has been ever thus. The Roman Colosseum built by the Flavian Dynasty between…

Capitalism and the IED

February 18th, 2015

Is Vulture Capitalism The IED That Blew Up Democratic Capitalism?

One of the few economists in the world who dares to speak out about why 80 individuals on this small planet now have the assets, wealth, and total net worth of 3.5 billion people, currently half of the world’s present population, is Christine Lagarde, the former finance minister of France who is now managing director of the International Monetary Fund. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland attended by…

Animals, Our Cousins

February 11th, 2015

Some years ago I wrote about a childless Texas ranch couple who wanted children back around the beginning of the 20th Century, but where they lived in ranch country there were very few children to adopt. One morning the rancher drove a team to the nearest town to pick up some supplies. At the local general store the owner told him about an orphan train from the East that was parked at the local station with a few orphans left. The rancher went to the station, talked to a few orphans,…

Constant Watering

February 7th, 2015

Horse Apples And Constant Watering

Molly Ivins, my favorite Texas political reporter, was an irascible, irreverent, funny and very quotable observer of politicians who were basically mental midgets governing the best and the brave.

She stuck labels of “Shrub” and “Dubya” on former President George W. Bush, and also pinned this on him: “If his I.Q. slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.” She’s the reason for my column title. To improve him, it would have…

Gitmo

January 28th, 2015

Gitmo, The Salt People, The Yanomami, The Reindeer People, And Us

So far, paleontologists say our early ancestors learned how to control fire over a million years ago. Modern man took over from the Neanderthals about 40,000 years ago if the scientists are right, and we have made tremendous economic and personal progress just in the last 100 years.

In 1910 we expected to live only 47 years. Now we expect to live at least 81, with many living beyond 100. Only 14 percent of 1910 homes had…