Frank Rich in Sunday NYTimes piece goes after what looks like so many playing fields where the players are in paralysis. He does see some possibilities that Obama can salvage enough of his presidency to get some things moving. The meeting with House Repu… more »

I met Howard Zinn at UCLA as a undergraduate in the mid-60s. He was doing draft counseling for those of us who wanted to avoid the Vietnam draft. He was smart, fiercely anti-war and had a tough no-nonsense approach to American realities. He will be misse… more »

But let me talk about the politics. I'm sure that in the short term it polls well. Most voters don't have a great grasp of what makes up the federal budget and the fact that about two-thirds of what the government does is security and social insurance fo… more »

Krugman sort of endorses re-appointing Bernanke. Sign of the times. What is less worse? Story earlier today on NPR about the deficit citing increase of same as possible jobs promoter, or not as bad as deficit hawks think. We have to face so much unpalata… more »

   Coakley’s defeat may have a silver lining for those who view politics as a spectator sport as well as those who specialize in finding silver linings. If you thought the Senate before this special election was dysfunctional, wait until you see this… more »

Reading J.G. Ballard past few days of bad weather, strange dystopias written with a weird detachment. Remember back when we had a paper in '67 we called The Burning World Review after his title. Ballard's prose style has me looking back with a longish st… more »

Bill Dodd 1941-2009 more »

Public television and a few other stationsAre educational and realizeThe possibilities of informationFree of the feel you get hacking aside thickJungle vines and underbrush watchingFor snakes, covered in sweat you won’tCleanse for days in pur… more »

 The mechanism leaks,Fails ignition, peak powerAnd thrust.I drill with ash. When it first came, I keptIt oiled and worked it oftenEvenWith no real job. Back then it was easyTo penetrate and pin woodFirmlyIn place with it.… more »

The recurring game on the Right is that European style social democracies don't work, that they bankrupt countries with high taxes and generous safety net deals, etc. But Krugman reverses this claim in today's NYTimes and sees the Europeans as doing thin… more »

 ernatiMeyerson in today's WaPo tries to answer the question of the inertia on the Left in these times. After what looked like a rebirth of New Deal possibilities and a dead end of laissez-fair free market economics,  as well as a new kind of activism in… more »

I met Bill Dodd in Robert Creeley’s office at the University of New Mexico in the early autumn of 1965, just before the shit really started to hit the fan. Cornered in a littered cubicle with a poetic legend and his youngblood protégé, a dude scarcely mo… more »