Kerry swipes Romney again today over Iran foreign policy… I have little interest in inserting myself, as a former nominee of my party, into this presidential campaign season. But as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has a vital role in issues of national security, I feel compelled to respond to the ways that, in pursuit of the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has put himself front and center in debates that have serious...
Jessica Winter debates in TIME Ideas: Are Women People? Winter says, “in the past couple of months, certain powerful figures in media and politics have cracked open that certitude,” that “women are fully autonomous human citizens—who vote, even.” I can fully understand the questions Winter is posing given the recent increase in the War On Women, by members of the Republican Party and Clergy. In her article, Winters recapps “recent instances of powerful men from the fields of law, politics...
The Super Bowl was February 5 this year. Did you pay attention to the responses some people had watching it on T.V.? “Kick ‘im in the head.” “Squash ‘im into the ground.” Followed by lots of four-letter words, yelling at the players, and throwing things across the room. And did you listen closely to some of the talk in the stands? “Kill ‘em!” “Take ‘em out!” “Crush ‘em!” This kind of behavior at sporting events, especially football games, is...
Once, many years ago, in a land far away between two oceans, with fruited plains, amber waves of grain, and potholes on its highways, there lived a young man named Sam. Now, Sam was a bright young man who wanted to work and save money so he could go to school and become an electrician. But the only job open in his small community was at the gas station. So, for two years, Sam pumped gas, washed windshields, checked...
by WALTER BRASCH One of the fun things sports writers do is try to predict the winners and scores of upcoming games, from high school through the pros. For special “look-at-us-we’re important” bonus points, they create lists of “Top” teams and rank them, both pre-season and weekly. Sports writers have some kind of genetic mutation that leads them to believe they know more about sports than the average schlump who spends almost $200 a year for a...
by WALTER BRASCH There is nothing the media love more than a good celebrity sex scandal. Since the story of Scarlett Johansson’s purloined nude pictures had run its course, and the media squeezed every drop of ink it could from the Kim Kardashian/Kris Humphries engagement/wedding/marriage/divorce, they had to find something else to feed the beast with the insatiable appetite. Something else was Penn State. Neatly packaged for the media was the trifecta of what passes as journalism—sex,...
by WALTER BRASCH “O.K., class, we have a few minutes at the end of today’s lecture about how the godless Communists created evolution to try to destroy the decent loyal patriotic capitalist society of America. Any questions? Yes, Billy Bob.” “Mr. Jim Bob, I heard about this thing called a person. What is that?” “Good question. With all the distortions by the lyin’ liberal left-wing, it can get confusing. But, it’s really simple. A person is an egg...
It is a profoundly anti-intellectual strain, the first naked statement of the "dumb it down" strain of "Conservatism" (which is, if you think about it, exceedingly radical, in wanting lots of social change as soon as possible) in demonizing "Liberalism" (which is, conversely, extremely "conservative" in continually protecting the status quo ante of the current social order).
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