America's borrowing party is over, and the bill is due

November 19, 2008

Here's one example of how "progressive" ideas fall victim to tough times: The City Council in Atlantic City has reversed the smoking ban inside the city's casinos, enacted just this year. The anti-smoking movement has suffered this surprising setback because gaming revenues are falling and a lot of casino employees are losing their jobs. It is hoped this will spark some upturn in business, and offset a competitive disadvantage with slots parlors in New Jersey's neighboring states that allow smokers to shorten their lives while gambling.

Recent columns

• Here's hoping the Obama worshippers are right

  November 12, 2008

  The historic nature of the election of Barack Obama resulted in newspapers publishing extra copies of their post- Election Day editions because the demand for them was greater than that for the latest generation of cell phones. For once, the Internet editions weren't enough to satisfy people - because you really can't keep electronic imaging on your computer screen as a memento. Major newspapers, including this one, sold tens of thousands of extra copies proclaiming the election of the first black president, and enterprising folks began reselling them for a premium - in some cases $100 or more above the newsstand price - on eBay and other Web sites.

• Don't expect much from next Great Man

  November 5, 2008

  Finally, blessedly, it's over. After the longest, most expensive campaign in American history, the voters have decided who will be the next Great Man to take the helm of our ship of state. Sen. Barack Obama has been swept into the presidency on a wave of contrasting yet complementary emotions.

• Will we let government squelch political speech?

  October 29, 2008

  It's hard to think of anything less liberal than a liberal with power. The people who peddle themselves as conservatives without being conservative in any real sense whatsoever are bad enough, I admit, what with their insistence that we shield ourselves from terrorists bent on harming us by waging perpetual war in Eurasia while establishing a surveillance state here at home.

• Democrats' questionable means to a dubious end

  October 22, 2008

  This newspaper saw fit this month to airily dismiss allegations of voter fraud against the national community group ACORN as being nothing more than partisan posturing by Republicans. In a lead editorial under the headline "Crying wolf?" The Baltimore Sun said, "ACORN's critics across the country accuse the group's workers of voter fraud, but the claims have the taint of hardball politics."

• Tales from the front lines of a fallen economy

  October 15, 2008

  Last week, I asked my listeners to tell me how the economic turbulence is affecting their lives. Personal stories can bring the abstract to life and make it seem more real, simpler, clearer.

• Wall Street rescue may be worst legislation ever

  October 8, 2008

  The American people spoke last week, and their rulers ignored them. That's nothing new, I know, but the passage of the bill to rescue Wall Street and other corporate interests from being grievously injured by what they themselves created in a frenzy of runaway greed is the most egregious, morally repugnant piece of legislation to be signed into law since - well, since when? I can't think of anything more ghastly in not only what it does but also what it implies about the future of this nation of ours.

• Bailout built on fantasy

  October 1, 2008

  Count me among those amazed at the failure of the president and congressional leaders to get enough votes in the House to pass the bailout bill Monday. It looked like a sure thing. Objections would be voiced on the floor, some representatives would explain the misgivings they had about OKing a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street - and then, most of us thought, the thing would be brought to life anyway. We were wrong. The markets were panicked by the failure to pass it. Stocks fell precipitously.

• Trusting those who got us into this mess to get us out

  September 24, 2008

  In brooding about the current financial meltdown, the question occurs: Why is it we are supposed to believe that the same "experts" who led us down the path to financial ruin are capable of constructing strategies, policies and bailouts that will turn us around and head us toward solvency? It makes no sense. We are assured that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is on top of things because he won his spurs as a scholar of the Great Depression. This isn't a replay of the 1930s, though; it's something new, something perhaps even bigger. Seems to me he's on top of things like a cowboy clinging to the back of a bucking bull. Like the bull rider, he won't be there long.

• Media pummel Palin while Obama gets kid gloves

  September 17, 2008

  Former top Hillary Clinton adviser Mark Penn says the media obsession with finding skeletons in the closet of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin since virtually the moment she was named the Republican vice presidential candidate could well backfire.

• Crime and punishment, Baltimore style

  September 10, 2008

  If one were to grade the Baltimore state's attorney's office on conviction rates and public relations skills, it would get maybe an F. But if one were to grade State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy and her sidekick spokeswoman Margaret T. Burns on the fine art of political stonewalling - that is, the outright refusal to answer inconvenient questions - the grade would have to be an A+.

• Another woman enters the ring of 2008 electoral circus

  September 3, 2008

  Like nearly every other person, I was surprised when Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. I'll bet she was pretty surprised herself when the call came from the old gent. Then came the news that one of the Palin daughters was pregnant. She's 17, and we are told she is going to keep the baby and will marry the young man who impregnated her. Now that's living the pro-life way. What fun. All of this adds yet more spice to the wonderful circus that is the 2008 American presidential race.

• Skipping the conventions as they skimp on substance

  August 27, 2008

  The first and only time I went to the national political conventions was in 1996 - first to San Diego for the GOP conclave, at which the elderly U.S. senator from Kansas, Bob Dole, was nominated to run against President Bill Clinton in his re-election bid. I remember that Mr. Dole was such a boring old politician that the Republicans were thrilled that he selected Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback and proponent of "supply-side" economics, as his choice for vice president. Mr. Kemp, it was thought, would bring some zest to the campaign. As you may recall, it remained remarkably zestless.

• Short attention spans and short memories

  August 20, 2008

  Nicholas Carr thinks that Google is making us "stoopid." In a recent piece in The Atlantic, he says those of us who constantly surf the Net can't concentrate properly anymore -- that instant access to virtually all information reduces our attention span. Mr. Carr says he can no longer immerse himself in a book or a long article, something that used to be easy for him. Has this happened to you? I thought so. It's happened to me as well.