by Walter Brasch Unless you were in a coma the past few years, you probably know who Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton are.  You heard about them on radio, saw them on television.  You read about them in newspapers and magazines, on Facebook, Twitter, and every social medium known to humanity. Because ...

Is the significance of Manuel Zelaya's return to Honduras really about the brokerage of the Organization of American States? Is it even really about Zelaya himself? Reports from Honduran citizens, and my interviews with scholars and observers on the ground in Honduras, suggest otherwise. Yesterday, the legitimately elected and illegitimately removed ...

Ol' Tim Pawlenty may be in a bit of a soup. ADaily Kos blogger passed along the news that ...then-Gov. Pawlenty granted to a sex offender in October 2008, a pardon that is certain to haunt Pawlenty throughout his campaign. Turns out the man Pawlenty pardoned was later arrested again for ...

I paid my first real visit (rather than an airport stop) to New Orleans in 2002. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina, one of the five deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history, devastated the southern coast, particularly New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish.  In 2010, the Gulf oil disaster exacerbated the five year-old ...

Concerning AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka's National Press Club speech on Friday, Steven Greenhorse of The NYT Caucus wrote: In what was advertised as a major policy address, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Richard Trumka, denounced Republicans on Friday over their efforts to cut Medicare spending and curb collective bargaining while promising ...

by Walter Brasch   With less than a week before the election, Marshbaum has been campaigning furiously.   "A chicken in every pot! Natural gas drilling will save the universe. Free health care for everyone!"   "Marshbaum!" I commanded, "you can't make those kinds of promises."   "You're right. I don't want to offend the health care industry. ...

The Pew Center has come up with yet another scheme of political typologies which we can use to situate ourselves; I took the test (because I always take these tests), and ended up a "New Coalition Democrat." Its group profile isn't horribly inaccurate; at least it didn't lump me in ...

The morning after. A Harper majority. The Canadians who possess the ability and embrace the right to critically analyze the information pumped out by corporate media and corrupt politicians are reeling. It’s like a horrific kick - straight into one’s gut. A Harper majority begs the question - do Canadians ...

Go! Get out into the greening.   See life happening. Get hip to the meaning   of the resurrection metaphor for Mother Earth in the act of returning what each autumn we mourn and is now being reborn with the first heady scent of royal purple hyacinth, a cyclical reminder that heaven is Earth and we are walking on the body of god.

by Walter Brasch   It was a little before 9 a.m.   I was chatting with two students.   Another student came in, and asked if we had heard a plane had hit a building in New York City.   We hadn't, but I assumed it was a light private plane, and the pilot had mechanical difficulty or ...