Even in a time of war, there can be moments of laughter. Late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert had a field day with a report about a Ukrainian grandmother who knocked down a Russian drone from her apartment balcony with a jar of tomatoes.  Equally low tech but less funny was a re

Being someone who meditates for enlightenment, I decided to bend my thoughts to the state of our democracy. My reason for doing so was this statement: the public has more confidence in the military than any other national institution. (“Crisis of Command,” by Risa Brooks et al, Fo

“Ready on the right.  Ready on the left. Ready on the firing line.  Commence firing.” In my early teens, as an entrant to long-range shooting competitions, I heard these words many times while I stared down the barrel of my Remington 22, the sites adjusted for wind, gravity, and

Those of us who see challenges through a filter of optimism can feel vindicated for that optimism because, despite warnings to the contrary, the 2020 Presidential election was fair.  Never mind that more than 50 court filings were intended to upend the results. Or, that  126 members

A former student of mine, now in his early 60s, visited me for coffee, recently.  We tried to avoid discussing politics, but it was the elephant in the room. Eventually,  my “young” friend admitted he found the antics in Washington, D. C. depressing.  Knowing he was a liberal D

How in the world did our Supreme Court come to the conclusion that corporations were people? Citizens United  The debate over whether they are or not had been going on for 200 years, though I little knew it.  As late as 1914, in a case before the Michigan Supreme Court, a brewery lo

Recently, I described how the National Rifle Association (NRA) influences gun control laws by funneling campaign contributions to friendly legislators. (Blog 12/13/2016)  Naturally, when our president-elect made a campaign promise to “drain the swamp,” I hoped he meant he’d dis

Under the law corporations are people, right?  That ruling, by the way, wasn’t the outcome of Citizen’s United.  It appeared in the 1886  case of Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. While the Supreme Court didn’t settle the railroad case on the question of personhoo

A friend who lives in South Africa sent me a clipping from her Cape Town newspaper. The article complained about the growing bureaucracy in that country and called for reform. That bureaucratic bloat was beginning to show its ugly head there came as no surprise to me. Bloat is a natur