Hard to believe though it is, the leaked draft opinion of Justice Samuel Alito is one of the most radical decisions in Supreme Court history. The proposed majority opinion striking down Roe v. Wade is not going to be remembered for its doctrinaire, misogynistic, didactic, and insensitive tone, nor for its incredulous conclusions. No, it […]
1,000,000,000 = 1 billion Euros ($110 billion in U.S. dollars) per day. That’s what Europe sends to Russia in cash every single day. At that rate Russia can finance a war for a very long time. At that rate, Russia can commit unlimited atrocities. And, even though some are afraid to call what Russia is […]
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Forest fires, cyber warfare, sabotage, and plain old utility company incompetence, greed, and malfeasance have brought us to the point where we must abandon the electrical grid. It isn’t safe. It does cause a significant percentage of forest fires here in California, it supports a utility (PG&E) that has been convicted of multiple felonies for […]
A great many things about the Russian invasion of Ukraine bother us, as well they should: the genocide, the war crimes, the images of starving children intermingled with dead bodies and urban wreckage that hasn’t been seen in Europe since the bombing of Dresden. Through it all, we in the U.S. have imagined ourselves tucked […]
We must do more! What more can we do? These twin phrases have become a refrain throughout western civilization. We are profoundly aware that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine on a genocidal scale. We are tormented by a desire to do something “more” but uncertain what that could be. Or how “something more” […]
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has captivated, as well it should, our general news coverage, our hearts, our minds, and our ability to clearly see the greater peril which is momentarily being obscured by the war. That is understandable on many levels when we see our fellow human beings, average Ukrainian civilians, targeted as victims of […]
The first battle of the Greco-Persian wars occurred in 490 B.C. in the town of Marathon, Greece. With Persians attacking cities all along the Greek mainland, and as Athenians braced for their own attack, Athenian General Miltiades took command of a civilian army and marched to Marathon to meet the Persian army. Using superior battle […]
Here they go again! It never ceases to amaze how far Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), a “public utility,” will go in harming the public interest. Their latest ploy is an attempt to surreptitiously resurrect the nearly 40-year-old Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which is scheduled to close by 2025. They want to bring it back […]
Many people familiar with economic history are familiar with the huge influence that Milton Friedman commanded in our recent economic past. Friedman, an economist and statistician, had an outsized impact on nations around the world through his work heading up the “Chicago School” (referring to the University of Chicago where he taught and led a […]
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Investor-Owned Utilities (“Utilities”) are plotting to kill California’s solar program. Apparently, avarice, and the ability to get away with causing 85 percent of area lost in recent forest fires in California, are not enough, and they are now coming up with ways to dramatically reduce all new solar installations in California. Can you believe that […]
Who was Martin Luther King, Jr? Why do we celebrate a “MLK Holiday” and is he still relevant in 2022? All great questions. Joyfully, the research to explicate those answers took a full day that I will be grateful for the rest of my life. Many of us grew up in the civil rights era. […]
Auld Lang Syne Sometimes referred to as the “New Year’s Anthem,” Auld Lang Syne begins with a markedly rhetorical question: Should old times “be forgot and never brought to mind,” and spends the next several verses confirming the value of times gone by and friendships that were developed to be celebrated into the new year. […]
This is one very difficult column to write. It is the end of the year, a time typically filled with Holiday cheer — whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or just Santa Claus and family. We pause to celebrate the happiness of the season, complete with the exchange of gifts, and to bask in the warm embrace […]
Almost every parent of a K-12 school age child is really concerned about the incessant school shootings that plague our nation. These have been escalating in violence and complexity over the 23 years since the Columbine massacre in 1999, and it is past time for a national conversation on gun violence and young people. If […]
