The homecoming picture of the gay Marine kissing his boyfriend has the same iconic feel as Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Life magazine shot of the sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day. Both images capture the essence of liberation on a large scale.
Pierre Tristam
Lady Liberty at Flagler Palm Coast High School: When Veterans Get Patriotism All Wrong
Veterans complained to the Flagler County School Board that student portrayals of Lady Liberty they say at FPC “desecrated” her and the flag and should be removed. The veterans were wrong, and were themselves desecrating American values.
Komen and the Smear on Planned Parenthood: Swiftboating Tactics From Abortion Zealots
The Susan J. Komen foundation had a choice with Planned Parenthood: Stick with rational neutrality or surrender to the political contamination of reactionaries’ echo chambers and the bogus war on abortion. Komen surrendered. The war on cancer–the only war worth fighting–and women will suffer.
Whether It’s Romney or Obama, Democracy Is Losing Big
No wonder so many people don’t see the point in voting. While the rest of us play one man, one vote in democracy’s delusional sandbox, a bunch of donors who add up to a cocktail party’s guest list are sealing the campaign’s fate.
Don’t Ban Internet Cafés. Regulate Them.
Internet cafés may be a pest, and their proponents make laughable arguments when they claim they’re not about gambling. But it’s not government’s business to ban them while swinging from the lottery’s levers. Regulation is the key.
Flouting the First:
Florida’s Slouch Back To Religious Favoritism
Florida’s proposed “Religious Freedom” amendment and a bill that would enable prayer at public school events project the false impression that religious expression in the public sphere is under siege, when the reverse is closer to the mark–as a bias particularly favoring Christianity.
The Florida Family Association’s Un-Christian Jihad on TLC’s “All-American Muslim”
In their war on TLC’s “All-American Muslim,” a few aberrant fools at the Florida Family Association are yearning for “No Muslims Allowed” signs everywhere and smearing this state’s reputation while drafting Lowe’s to their bigoted crusade.
My 10 Predictions for 2012
Obama is reelected, the world doesn’t end except for Tim Tebow, Jim Landon and Sharon Atack look for other jobs and the News-Journal goes into the cemetery business: predictions worthy of James Ussher.
We Don’t Need Another Payroll Tax Cut
We can all afford less tax coddling and more fiscal responsibility. But don’t expect to hear that from allegedly conservative Republican and our blandly, irresponsibly centrist president, who’s bribing his way to a second term.
Philip Roth’s Everyman
In Everyman, this is the Philip Roth writing the eulogy from behind the ordinariness, the Roth who reads hearts like America’s best social cardiologist, still writing like it’s a midday office tryst he can pull off with as much virility as Portnoy in his prime.