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.
Pierre Tristam
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.
Obama’s Roosevelt Envy–And Ours
Obama’s version of Roosevelt Lite won’t cut it if he can’t back up his rhetoric with a more serious program of defending the middle class against corporate predators and rich-class irresponsibility.
0.2% Stupor: Protecting 350,000 Millionaires At the Expense of 160 Million Workers
There’s a very simple way to ensure that this country goes the way of old, bankrupt empires, and it doesn’t take flying planes into building or suckering the world’s mightiest military into pointless wars halfway around the globe. All it takes is voting Republican.
In Praise of Tom Wicker, Antidote to the Age of Reagan
Tom Wicker, the Times columnist for 25 years, wrote as if he’d seen the country’s best days. He probably had even then, having witnessed the eight years of Reagan taking out a second, third and fourth mortgage on the nation’s prosperity while making Americans feel like a million bucks.
Our School District’s Uniform Follies
The Flagler County School Board’s push for uniforms is out of touch with the county’s struggling families and plundered budgets and revealing of a board too prone to selling out to charter-school gimmickry.