American Democracy 1776 – 2024

At long last, after years of campaigning, rallies and rhetoric, and after billions of dollars spent to sway the opinions of a tiny sliver of the electorate residing in seven of its fifty states, the US 2024 elections have concluded. The people have spoken, and what they said was Donald John Trump will be the… Continue reading American Democracy 1776 – 2024

Useful Idiots’ Delight

We denizens of the Washington DC metropolitan area who work inside the Beltway know quite well who Dick Cheney is. Most people in the United States, however, have at best a hazy idea of him. And certainly, there is no particular reason why the international readers of this Web log, who are legion, would know… Continue reading Useful Idiots’ Delight

A Fable for Our Time

Long, long ago, in the days of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, there was a storybook neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, called Dominion Hills. It was a prosperous place – quiet, middle class, very respectable and lily white. The people who lived there all either worked for the one of the many federal government agencies, served in… Continue reading A Fable for Our Time

Silence of the Gats

The proposition that democracy is an imperfect form of government is nothing new. Plato wrote a book about his proposed alternative, where a class of philosopher kings would replace the rule of the people, and this year is the two-thousand four-hundredth anniversary of his writing it. Who would actually be good enough, wise enough, just… Continue reading Silence of the Gats

A Kennedy Off-Center Visit

As the Memorial Day weekend hails the start of summer in America (yes, the Rest of the World, I know summer actually begins in June in the Northern Hemisphere, but the last weekend in May is when we Yanks traditionally get our first beach sunburns and barbecue heartburns of the year) those of us not… Continue reading A Kennedy Off-Center Visit