As each new day unfolds it seems the United States of America becomes more disunited, impatient and uncivil. What passes for entertainment, education and political discourse, particularly in the media, is rarely more than sensationalism and the exchange of insults and shouting. And with the exception of few good newspapers, magazines and websites, along with [...]
Entries Tagged as 'mediocrity'
A Conspiracy of Ignorance
January 30th, 2010 · No Comments · Editorial, Politics and Social Issues, media
Tags:conspiracy·dissent·dissent decree·dissentdecree·excellence·ignorance·Meaning·media·mediocrity·outrage·politics·television
Still Waiting for the Change We Can Believe In
January 15th, 2010 · No Comments · Editorial, Politics and Social Issues
I voted for a “change we can believe in,”—for President Obama and the Democrats. Today I am dismayed.
Yes, we have gotten change, the change of spin and rhetoric. But corporate greed and the arrogance of the nation’s top bankers continue unabated while our social fabric and economic system shreds. In contemporary America, justice, ethics, morality, [...]
Tags:Congress·Democrats·dissent·dissent decree·dissentdecree·health care reform·law·Lawyers·mediocrity·Obama·outrage·politics
Mutterings and Musings
August 7th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Politics and Social Issues
I frequent a coffee shop near the Michigan state capitol. Each day some mix of legislators, lawyers, lobbyists, law students, and state workers gather here.
As I sit reading and drinking coffee, I overhear some of their conversation. Puffery, earnest pleading, non-committal blather, misdirection, misperception, lies and the occasional truth—I hear it all. This is the [...]
Tags:American·dissent·dissent decree·dissentdecree·excellence·mediocrity·perception·politics
Prejudice and Common Sense
May 6th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Uncategorized
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.”
Albert Einstein
Common sense is common because it favors the answer that seems obvious to the many. Yet truth is often subtle, nuanced, contextual and relative. Rarely is it black and white and almost always it is a matter of opinion.
Politicians and charlatans often appeal to [...]
Tags:common sense·dissent·dissent decree·Einstein·mediocrity·T.S. Eliot
Educated Fools
February 23rd, 2009 · 5 Comments · Uncategorized
Her name was Persis which she said meant a Gift of God. She was my great-grandmother, but I always called her grandma. Before I was born she had already raised my grandmother, and my mother. She had lost children in the influenza epidemic of 1918, lived through two world wars, the Great Depression and two husbands. One had drowned [...]
Tags:dissent·dissent decree·dissentdecree·dream·economics·educated fools·mediocrity
