Watching Republican candidates debate taxes and creationism on TV reminds me of original Star Trek episodes featuring those low-tech aliens that nevertheless managed to speak English every time.
Beyond Qaddafi’s Good Riddance
Chest-thumping illusions aside, there wasn’t much difference between the killing of Qaddafi and the killing of bin Laden, and America’s coddling of other Arab dictators carries on.
Tasers and the Flagler County School Board: Feeble Surrender to an Instrument of Torture
The re-introduction of Tasers on campus is disturbing on many levels, not least because the Flagler school board had no evidence they were needed. Nor did it consider the barbaric implications of Tasers in school settings.
The Lusty Joys of Book-Banning
Parents who run their homes like North Korea aside, it is literally impossible to ban a book in America anymore. An excerpt from Pierre Tristam’s Banned Book Week address on Sept. 26 to the Friends of the Library in Palm Coast.
Palestinian Statehood: Deserved, Overdue, Inevitable
The Obama administration’s attempts to block Palestinian statehood at the United Nations scorn American ideals and pander to Israel’s insistence on denying Palestinians’ right to exist. The outcome will be ruinous.
Since 9/11: A Reckoning
Moving tributes and grief aside, one lesson of the last 10 years is that we have yet to learn the lesson of the last 10 years: we are not only on a spiral downward. We are feeding the spiral, collectively and consciously. We should all be mourners, and not just for 9/11’s victims.
Obama’s Job Gig: Pin-Up to GOP Voodoo
What jobs program? Obama’s surrender to stimulus by tax cuts is another concession to bully superstitions. Obama has lost credibility. He’s lost respect. He’s losing the nation right along with him.
Campaign Notes: Defacing Moorman, Excluding Ericksen, Unseating Kim Weeks
Palm Coast City Councilman Holsey Moorman reacts to his vandalized sign, Democrats explain why they invited Jon Netts and not Charlie Ericksen, and the complete list of candidates thinking (or not) of challenging Kimberle Weeks, the Flagler County Supervisor of Elections.
I Love Waste Pro. But.
To my 7-year-old son, Waste Pro’s twice-weekly pickups are a sacred, joyful ritual made more so by Waste Pro’s thoughtful workers. That doesn’t mean Palm Coast should shirk its responsibilities to residents when it comes to bidding out a new garbage contract.
The Greater Threat: Christian Extremism From Timothy McVeigh to Anders Breivik
Those two men—two right-wing reactionaries, terrorists, anti-government white supremacists, Christians—have plenty in common with the fundamentalist politicians and ideologues among us who pretend to have nothing to do with the demons they inspire.