Krugman gets to the point about the current need for a health care plan that deserves airtime and now. A step forward on this is Medicaid availability to people on Unemployment with no health coverage. This has been one of the most important steps Obama… more »

I first met the fiction writer Scott Ely at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where he and his wife, poet Susan Ludvigson, both teach creative writing. The couple divide their time between a two-story Victorian house in Rock Hill and a re… more »

Yes, the load of these years comes to a close and the possibility of new life breathed afresh on such a grand stage is with us. Not perfect by any means, and certainly for those of us who remember the lofty rhetoric of JFK's inaugural a much different sp… more »

Coming close to destroying a superpower and the global economy virtually single-handedly is not bad for someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth who never held a steady job until the age of 45 - until "turd blossom" Karl Rove, the little, fat, bald… more »

A friend of some years here in San Miguel, W.D. Snodgrass, died earlier in the week. De had been in Hospice care for a time in upstate New York. We had many good occasions here, talks and dinners and we attended each other's readings. The last time De an… more »

(Cross posted from Lytspeed.com) I got a note today from the Poker Player's Alliance (of which I am a member), urging me to support legalization of online poker on Change.gov, the website that Obama's administration is using to take the pulse of the A… more »

I heard John McCain say that, if he were elected, we would win in Iraq. I heard Sarah Palin say that it didn’t make sense to withdraw from Iraq when we were “almost winning.” So I asked myself: What would it look like for us to win in Iraq? What is an… more »