The American political system isn’t what it used to be. While change in governing is as inevitable as it is in every other part of life, the transformation of political practices and behavior is radical. The system is subject to constitutions, federal and state, and to laws made to carry out their intent. But the […]

The Providence Journal (R.I.), April 30: Oskar Groening somehow embodies both the worst and the best of humanity. His trial challenges us to consider the meaning of guilt and redemption. The 93-year-old “Bookkeeper of Auschwitz” is on trial in Lueneburg, Germany, charged with accessory to murder. Three hundred thousand murders. He has presented an unexpectedly […]

This is shaping up as the “Why not me?” election. As more candidates declare for president ”“ three Republicans joined the fray just this week ”“ they encourage the remaining fence-sitters to take a run more seriously. Look at John Kasich, now in his second term as governor of Ohio after serving nine terms in […]

Flatulence. It’s a real gas. Zing! Thank you folks, I’m here all week. Be sure to tip your waitresses. This particular rumination is dedicated in part to my father, who can consistently be relied upon to double over in laughter whenever someone within earshot releases a gaseous emission longer than a radio commercial and louder […]

The Rutland Herald (Vt.), April 30: Sen. Bernard Sanders will announce today that he plans to run for president. He is the first candidate to take on Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, though never before in his long career has he identified himself as a Democrat. He has been a party of one, known […]

The real news isn’t that many Texans seemingly subscribe to an apocalyptic, delusional worldview that has them convinced that a U.S Army training exercise called “Jade Helm 15” is the opening wedge of an Obama-led coup d’etat ”“ seizing guns, importing thousands of ISIS fighters to subdue local patriots and throwing dissenters into FEMA concentration […]

The superintendent and the school committee are to be commended for presenting the council with a .25-percent budget increase. What makes this budget even more remarkable is how the financial ship has been kept righted in a perfect budget storm. At Tuesday’s school committee meeting the superintendent discussed the dire funding picture: first, state subsidy […]

The Standard-Times of New Bedford (Mass.), April 29: A photo published in The Baltimore Sun on April 28 showed young black men gleefully, almost hysterically, dashing out of a looted Baltimore CVS store that would later be set ablaze. One was clutching a box of Fruit Loops and a half-gallon of ice cream, and one […]