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In a democracy, or in our case a democratic republic with people chosen by their peers to represent others in dealing with public matters, the government is the club we grown ups belong to. There are families, churches and temples, parent-teacher associations, bowling leagues, film societies, baseball conferences, chambers of…
Read More »Web photo courtesy of rocktumbler.com Online videos illustrate the results when plain-looking stones slowly turn in a rock tumbler with a mixture of special grit and a liquid solution. After 30 days of continuous tumbling, the agate, quartz, and jasper mineral specimens come out looking glassy and gleamy and so…
Read More »James Carville is always worth a listen—for the Democrats, at least. He does this for a living, so I put stock in what he says. Here is a Sept 1 interview in Vanity Fair. James Carville, Democratic political strategist (web photo courtesy of Wikipedia)
Read More »Last week, my wife, Rosemary, and I diverted to Hyde Park, New York, on the way back home from Syracuse University to see the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The experience was well worth the hour-and-a-half drive south from Albany along the Hudson River and surprisingly relevant. Once…
Read More »I think this analysis by columnist Thomas B. Edsall in today’s NYTimes is too binary and too harsh on the Democrats coast to coast, but inside his argument are truths about trends and the record of priorities in the past 40 years, since Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The TV show “All…
Read More »Media commentator Dan Kennedy on WGBH explains why Republic Presidential candidate Donald Trump is a special challenge to the media in reporting the reality of Trump’s attempt to win the White House. President Obama made similar remarks today, saying that Trump is in his own category of unfit for the…
Read More »In response to a friend’s Facebook posting about a photo of candidate Trump’s family of great white hunters with their big-game safari trophies, I added a few thoughts (expanded here) about what this Trump thing means, if we even know what it means.—PM Where are we headed? Or have we…
Read More »Not watered down. The Trump thing.
Read More »As our July weather heats up later this week and as we await the start of Democratic and GOP conventions, look for a heat-up on the Merrimack Valley campaign front. The presumptive Democratic nominee for President Hillary Clinton has a big event planned for Portsmouth NH on Tuesday. Expect many…
Read More »For the Fourth of July, Independence Day, here’s a poem from the nation’s capital. I wrote this prose poem after a family trip to Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2004. There were John Kerry-for-President signs in the windows. GOP posters for “W,” too. Barack Obama was a figure on…
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