Urging an excellent Dem congresswoman to act on global climate change
Here in NY-20 we have had the great good fortunate to see one of Bush's sleaziest enablers in congress, John Sweeney, replaced by an enthusiastic and very capable young congresswoman, Kirsten...
View ArticleImagining Al Gore for Vice President
If we really only have ten years or less to reverse or even slow global warming, our favorite Democrat (Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Kucinich...) really ought to be able to park his or her...
View ArticleHow about getting rid of presidential primaries altogether?
What’s so great about the presidential primary system? It allows the media to turn the entire political process into a maniacal ego-driven race among individuals. It forces presidential...
View ArticleRFK Jr. calls for a masterstroke for Obama on energy
In the May issue of Vanity Fair, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written an article that is must reading. He entitles it "The Next President’s First Task." And he is absolutely on target and explains very...
View ArticleCalling for a 2nd masterstroke on energy by Obama
Although it was on the recommended list July 6-7 and elicited many helpful responses, one of the weaknesses in my diary "RFK jr. Calls for a Masterstroke on Energy by Obama" is that transportation,...
View ArticleObama & a new national electric grid
During his interview with Rachel Maddow on October 30, Obama signaled that he will make a new national power grid a top priority.Although I am no expert, I wrote a diary back in July on this kind of...
View ArticleJohn Walker Lindh, Benedict Arnold and the Wise Use of Traitors
In 2001 John Walker Lindh was captured by American forces in Afghanistan. Despite the fact that this young American so successfully convinced the Taliban of his loyalty thathe met Osama bin Laden, the...
View ArticleWhy an old battlefield matters
Last week the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation issued a press release detailing which state parks and historic sites would be closed in response to what Governor...
View ArticleEarth Day at one small toxic dump
With media attention naturally focused on the huge issues, it is easy to miss the extent to which the Obama administration has changed the function of government in positive directions. On a day like...
View ArticleObama's Race to the Top: Educational Inequity and Union-Busting, All in One...
If you are in New York, California, Minnesota or any number of other states, you have been bombarded in recent months by a well-funded campaign against teachers’ unions, all in the name of grabbing a...
View ArticleParallels between the Afghan and Korean Wars
Although Pakistan has re-opened its border, nearly a hundred NATO supply trucks have been destroyed.The incredible vulnerability of our overextended Afghan supply lines demonstrated by these attacks...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What the container ships say
Last week I was watching a container ship being unloaded when I realized that this common sight in our ports is a vivid illustration of why the American economy and standard of living will continue to...
View ArticleObama's DHS acts to extend Arizona-style anti-immigrant policy nationwide
In the midst of the Fall election season and its aftermath, the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security is quietly moving to extend a version of the infamous Arizona SB-1070...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When the socialists and anarchists came to town in 1912
Redco strikers at Hansen Island bridge in 2007On November 1, 2007 fifty-one workers at the Redco plant in my old hometown of Little Falls, New York went on strike in response to a company decision...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the inventor of Social Security was destroyed by his fellow capitalists
Dolge is still honored in the village he founded For thirty years Republicans have claimed that cutting taxes on the wealthy will benefit working people. The rich, we have been told, will invest...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Buddhists with a Billion Dollars and Faith Healing in the Rust Belt
One of many abandoned factories in Amsterdam, NY Last summer a self-described Buddhist group from China, calling itself the World Peace and Health Organization, promised to invest a billion...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Standing on Indian Hill
Cross-Published with more illustrations and details at Upstate EarthLast week I stood on a densely wooded hilltop and looked down a steep cliff to a creek swollen with Spring rains. I was only four...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Harmen van den Bogart & the price he paid for same sex love in old New...
illustration from George O'Connor's Journey into Mohawk CountryNew Netherlands, during the six decades of its existence in the 17th century, was generally more tolerant than the neighboring English...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Simone Weil and the Primacy of Attention
The film,"Encounter with Simone Weil," won the special Founders Prize Monday at Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival earlier this week, a long overdue recognition of the French philosopher whom...
View ArticleThe Socialist Mayor of Schenectady
A hundred years ago Democrats and Republicans were united in their hatred for socialism. Unlike today, however, socialism was not simply a mythical bogeyman. There was a real Socialist Party. It...
View ArticleObama's Dept of Homeland Security ignores New York State's resistance to its...
In November 2010 I wrote a diary entitled Obama's DHS acts to extend Arizona-style anti-immigrant policy nationwide. Although it seemed for a while that the president would rein in the abuses of that...
View ArticleCol. Gibson vs. the CIA Man: Report from NY-19
Our Republican congressman Chris Gibson is a likeable and modest guy, and that’s why I’d give him the edge in the ongoing congressional race in NY-19. In fact, I like him myself even though I won’t...
View ArticleMitt Romney's Bailout Bonanza
I dont' know why the entire Democratic party is not talking about Greg Palast's great piece in the Nation: Mitt Romney's Bailout Bonanza. It's really an amazing revelation. Although Romney opposed the...
View ArticleDealing with climate change will require real sacrifices
It’s beginning to look as if Hurricane Sandy has finally made the words “climate change” acceptable for public discussion. As most rational people noticed, the words never appeared anywhere in the four...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bakken Oil moving through Northeast by rail and water
Tanker cars full of Bakken crude in downtown AlbanyWhen Hurricane Sandy devastated the New York and New Jersey coast, politicians and media people actually pronounced the words “climate change”...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Bushmaster 223: An Upstate New York Success Story
When I was growing up in Little Falls, New York in the 1960s, the men who worked in Snyder’s on East Main Street or at the Remington factory in nearby Ilion had good jobs. The work was highly skilled...
View ArticleI agree with my Republican congressman
Last Fall I wrote a diary on the congressional race in NY-19 in which I volunteered for the Democratic challenger, Julian Schriebman. Although I had misgivings about Schriebman’s history as a CIA...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If I Were a Terrorist, I’d Go Shopping for a Prepaid Cellphone
A more concise version of this story was published today in the Albany Times Union as A Huge Gap in Our Security. Returning from a visit to Texas last month, I was called aside for some further...
View ArticleIt's tough being a world cop
Ross Douthat's column in today's New York Times "War, What is it good for?" offers a fictional version of what Obama would say about Syria if he could be honest. It’s not about humanitarianism. It’s...
View ArticleTrying to account for John Kerry's behavior
I am still trying to account for Kerry's current stance as chief promoter of this new war. After all, he first came to national notice for his opposition to the Viet Nam War. True, he was not a draft...
View ArticleReport from NY-19: Sean Eldridge vs. Chris Gibson
Democratic challenger Sean Eldridge is fighting an uphill battle against two term incumbent Chris Gibson but after meeting him yesterday, I believe there's a chance he can win. I confess that I had...
View ArticleA winning strategy for the democratic left in the Age of Trump
Resistance in the new political universe created by Trump cannot succeed if those who speak for working people continue down the discredited path of the Clintons, Obama, Schumer and others associated...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A socialist woman tells us about the world to which Trump wants to return us
I grew up in one of those rust belt factory factory towns invoked by our “president” in his recent declaration of war on the 70% of us who do not support him. I’d like to offer to readers a first hand...
View ArticleNY-19 Republican congressman John Faso gets a visit from his unhappy neighbors
Kinderhook, New York looks like a classic American village, the home of Martin Van Buren and also the home of our new Republican congressman, John Faso. We have a pretty little town square, a great...
View ArticleGrowing up about guns
I grew up with guns in a small upstate New York town but even forty years ago there were plenty of instances of gun violence. When I was in fifth grade, one of the first graders came to school covered...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman
There is no better time than now to learn about the heroic women of the past. I was delighted recently to learn that Cornell University Press had published the memoir of IWW organizer Matilda...
View ArticleMy first diary about Kirstin Gillibrand and climate change: Ten Years Ago
Ten years ago last week, I posted my first diary on Daily Kos, in which I urged my then congressional rep Kirstin Gillibrand to take the lead in efforts to combat climate change. This diary was a...
View ArticleMaking last minute donations to progressive causes on New Years Eve
Like many Americans, I’m celebrating the end of the 2017 tax year by sending out a flurry of last minute contributions, in my case to progressive causes. Purely political organizations, of course, are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ursula Leguin talked about the Golem we all know
If, like me, you felt as if you lost a true friend when you heard of the passing on Monday of the great novelist Ursula K. Leguin, you too may find yourself going back and re-reading her books like The...
View ArticlePoetry for a time of social distance: Anna Akhmatova
Cross-published at Upstate EarthAlthough I haven’t written a diary here for a long time, I thought I might try a series on poets I’ve been reading while separated from those I love. For me the most...
View ArticleAnother poetic companion for a time of social isolation: Sappho
cross-published at Upstate EarthOf all the poets of the Greco-Roman world, Sappho is the only woman whose name we know and whose words (at least a few of them) have come down through the centuries to...
View ArticleGetting the News from Poetry: William Carlos Williams
It is difficultto get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lackof what is found there.Near the end of his life, William Carlos...
View ArticleWe must risk delight: The Poetry of Jack Gilbert
This is another in my series on poets for a bad time. I thought I knew American writers of his generation well but I had never heard of Jack Gilbert until a friend recommended him to me a couple weeks...
View ArticleThe generous poetry of Ellen Bass
(Cross published atUpstate Earth)Ellen Bass is appearing with Aracelis Girmay and Ross Gay tonight at a Brooklyn Public Library virtual event entitled"Holding Space for Grief." In these terribly...
View ArticleMe & my co-author ChatGPT
You’ve probably been hearing the alarm bells ringing in academia since the arrival of ChatGPT a couple months ago. This latest free “gift” to the public from OpenAI has been seized upon by unethical...
View ArticleThoughts on the possibility of a non-violent Ukrainian resistance to the...
I was surprised at the almost entirely negative response generated by my speculations yesterday on the use of passive resistance to the Russian invasion. I had added this comment to the Ukraine Update...
View Article
