After an extended Memorial Day weekend, Nicole Sandler returns to discuss the last few surreal days in campaign world. Harvey J. Kaye guests to tell us about the use and abuse of patriotic history from the right. And Switzerland will vote on a Universal Basic Income. Sandhya Anantharaman will explain how it would work there and here in the US too.
Here is how the Los Angeles Times framed Jebya Bush's effort to look presidential by taking a Very Important trip overseas to prove his global cred: Jeb Bush makes it through Europe unscathed, if not more popular at home Here is the first paragraph of that "news" report: When he flies home from here Saturday, Jeb Bush can boast that his ripple-free trip to three European nations this week proved he is capable of striding without stumbling on a global stage. Here is how the L.A. Times ended their story: To the extent Bush needed a whiff of fresh air and [...]
I would like nothing more than to ignore TV news, but because writing and commentating about it is what I do, and because one cannot ignore what goes on around one, we, I, cannot afford to do that. So I keep watching. Being uninformed is not an option. Being misinformed by those who report the news is worse. Day after day, I cringe as I watch and listen to what passes for reporting and how it is reported. Every so often, a rant is in order. Today is one of those every-so-oftens. Most of the quotes below are my own creations in [...]
Finally! Today marks the Vernal Equinox... or the beginning of Spring. Silly non-religious folks (like me) tend to celebrate these days- when we enter a new phase of planetary alignment with the sun- rather than religious holidays based on a book written a few thousand years ago. Yet somehow the pagans who join together to celebrate nature at Ostara Festivals around the world - and pre-date Christianity! - are considered the odd balls. Welcome to opposite world. It's somehow fitting that Fred Phelps, the founder of the hate-spewing Westboro Baptist Church, died on one of the biggest pagan holidays [...]
Regular listeners of my show know that I've, at times, been critical of Ed Schultz. But nothing I've seen or heard from him before raised my ire as his segment last night on the Keystone XL pipeline. I happened to catch him shilling for the project with former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer on a couple of occasions, and was incensed when he basically concluded that even if the US acted responsibly with regard to the future of the planet, other countries like China and India won't, so we might as well reap the monetary profits from raping the earth. But [...]