By Heather Gray – ATLANTA, Ga. — With the new Republican Congress being seated in January 2015 there is no doubt that there will be efforts to further expand neoliberal (politically conservative) policies at the expense of us all. In fact, the political right wing has been trying to erode the government’s “collective” benefits of…
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – The word “spin” has several meanings. Grandpa thinks it is what you do when you test drive a new car. Grandma says it’s what the washing machine does. And the soccer mom does it when she goes to the health club. But political types know it is the…
Africatown News – By Joe Womack – On December 16, 2014 the Africatown Community attended a meeting hosted by The Yorktown Baptist Church to voice their opposition to local industries attempt to re-zone a section of Africatown just North of The Community Gardens from residential to industrial. More than 150 Africatown residents, supporters and friends…
By Bob Wells – I’m posting this on Christmas day and so I want to make it somewhat on topic, the problem is I’m not a Christian so I don’t celebrate Christmas. Beyond that, I despise the wanton waste and destruction that Christmas has become and I’ve been preaching against it for a long time.…
EDITOR’S NOTE: On Monday, Dec. 15 at 6 p.m. we will be talking with former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern about the US Senate’s report on torture. In 2006, McGovern returned his CIA medal to former House Intelligence Committee chair Pete Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan – see the letter below explaining his reasons for doing…
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – It looked innocent enough. Just another of the dozens of emails I get every day. Then I looked again and immediately did a double take. It was an email of an email. The first was from the Alabama State Director of the Alabama Federation for Children. He was…
Editor’s Note: Because we’re in the annual enrollment period for Obamacare I’m going to write about health care. I don’t pretend to understand most of this stuff, in fact, much of what I know I learned from a fellow blogger. For that reason I encourage you to go to her blog and read one of…
Africatown News – By Joe Womack – The historical value of Africatown’s Hog Bayou was carved in stone long before the Oil Barons of the world discovered Africatown’s valuable wetlands. Africatown’s Hog Bayou will forever be known as the place in Mobile where the “African” slaves taught the “American” slaves how to feed themselves and…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
By Nicholas Sheppard – It’s a growing trend in the age of social media — quirky and awkward moments involving politicians and public figures that go viral, piercing the monotony of carefully scripted public appearances and exposing the best efforts of spin doctors and image-conscious, risk-averse politicians. We get a strange, silly buzz from quirky…
If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. — Eleonora Duse By Bob Wells – Sometimes I get to…
By Robert Reich – The President blames himself for the Democrat’s big losses Election Day. “We have not been successful in going out there and letting people know what it is that we’re trying to do and why this is the right direction,” he said Sunday. In other words, he didn’t sufficiently tout the Administration’s…
By Robert Reich – Commenting on a recent student suicide at an Alaska high school, Alaska’s Republican Congressman Don Young said suicide didn’t exist in Alaska before “government largesse” gave residents an entitlement mentality. “When people had to work and had to provide and had to keep warm by putting participation in cutting wood and…
