By Bob Wells – This month I’m going to be doing posts on how our society got so addicted to stuff as evidenced in Black Friday and Christmas shopping in general. I’ll offer explanations and suggestions about what we can do about it including alternative ways to celebrate Christmas without the orgy of greed. This…
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – Virtually no one in America had ever witnessed such a horrific event live and free on television — until then. It was simultaneously more violent, more chaotic and more disturbing than maybe anything we’d ever seen. A handful of burly peace officers bearing down in concert on a…
By Bob Wells – As you might know I just went over to New Mexico for a week to spend time at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge at the Festival of the Cranes. Every November they hold a large Festival to celebrate the return of the Sandhill Cranes. It’s popular enough that photographers come…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – OAK MOUNTAIN, Ala. – My home town. That line from an old Andy Griffith episode keeps going through my mind this morning sitting in the campsite listening to the woodpeckers work. Passing through my hometown of Birmingham on the way to Mobile this week, I heard a…
By Robert Reich – This is the time of year when high school seniors apply to college, and when I get lots of mail about whether college is worth the cost. The answer is unequivocally yes, but with one big qualification. I’ll come to the qualification in a moment but first the financial case for…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Based on extensive recent scientific evidence about the harmful effects of ground-level ozone, also known as smog, the Obama administration is proposing to strengthen air quality standards to better protect Americans’ health and the environment. The Clean Air Act requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review the standards every five years…
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – It was all over before the shouting when county prosecutor Robert McCulloch opted to actually try the case before a secret grand jury as opposed to simply and traditionally allowing the matter to be tried in a public court of law. The fix was in from the start.…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MARION, Va. – We made the drive down U.S. Highway 81 out of Maryland and into Virginia on Monday on our first migration south for the winter in the camper van, making it to a familiar spot along Hungry Mother Creek, one of those many babbling brooks…
By Bob Wells – Back in the summer of 2012 I was contacted by Michael Tubbs, a Professor at the University of Texas, about the possibility of being in a new documentary he was going to make about mobile living. He had started to do research on the topic and had come across my Website.…
By Justin McCarthy – WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment period begins, 37 percent of Americans say they approve of the law, one percentage point below the previous low in January. On the other hand, 56 percent of Americans sampled say they disapprove of the law. Americans were slightly more…
By Bob Wells – I’ve just arrived back in Eherenberg, Arizona from my trip to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico. It was an amazingly wonderful trip that I liked so much I’m already planning to go again next year. I took four classes and they were all truly outstanding; I…
By Nicholas Sheppard – John Adams once described the vice-presidency as “The most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived.” In the 1930s, John Garner went one further, famously describing the office as being “not worth a bucket of warm piss”. Things have hardly gotten better since Garner’s time. Richard Nixon’s painfully wrought…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – The world is populated by many very good people. Then there are the assholes, who simply do not get it. When I set out on this adventure back in September to live with a very low carbon footprint in a camper van in the…
In an address to the nation, President Obama lays out the executive action he’s taking to fix our nation’s broken immigration system. Who will get the Hispanic vote in the presidential election of 2016 now? The Democrats? Or Jeb Bush? What do you think?
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – You have to tip your hat to former Alabama Governor Bob Riley’s Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund and the great job they do with public relations. Hardly a day goes by without someone trying to convince us the best way to help kids in struggling schools is to take…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – In a narrow victory for common sense, yesterday the Senate rejected an attempt to legislate approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Senators like California’s Barbara Boxer, Hawaii’s Brian Schatz, and Virginia’s Tim Kaine stood up as environmental champions and deserve our thanks for their leadership. But…
Could a Massive Climate Shift Really Happen? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – LURAY, Va. — It’s been so cold the past couple of days that I’ve felt like a character in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow.” I woke up just before dawn this morning and the iPhone weather said it…
Watch the Video – By Glynn Wilson – LEWIS MOUNTAIN, Va. – When the National Park Service was established in 1935 and the U.S. Department of the Interior along with President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps began building roads, retaining walls, campgrounds and trails to get ready for visitors, there was an interest on the…
By Robert Reich – The richest Americans hold more of the nation’s wealth than they have in almost a century. What do they spend it on? As you might expect, personal jets, giant yachts, works of art, and luxury penthouses. And also on politics. In fact, their political spending has been growing faster than their…
Watch the Video – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — The Shenandoah salamander is no endangered polar bear, cuddly panda cub or playful dolphin the American public may warm up to in the cause of fighting global warming from the burning of fossil fuels. Yet it is the latest poster child from…
