Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
My wife and I shop for groceries and other essentials at four different stores in the City of Tucson, although we live a few miles outside of city limits and there are closer stores, including a Whole Foods, which is too expensive for our frugality. One of the four stores is Walmart. We will no […]
Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
A lesson on how a seemingly simple subject is actually quite complex. Statistics don’t lie, but they sure can be cherry-picked. Consider this recent headline from the Arizona Daily Star, the daily newspaper in Tucson: Tucson is still among the best in the West for home affordability Despite surging home prices, Tucson ranks among the […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
Shades of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial of 100 years ago. Being retired, my wife and I were able to keep the TV tuned all day to the Kyle Rittenhouse trial as we went about our normal activities, stopping what we were doing to pay attention to the proceedings when something important happened in the […]
Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
The reasons can be found in the book Gulag and in the book Tunnel 29. Gulag, by Anne Applebaum, Anchor Books, New York, paperback edition, 2004, 677 pages Tunnel 29, by Helena Merriman, Public Affairs, New York, hardback edition, 2021, 318 pages Reviews by Craig J. Cantoni Bernie Sanders is an avowed socialist and is […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
We wouldn’t put up with it in the physical world but put up with it in the virtual world. The media have been full of stories and commentaries about such tech giants as Facebook and Google, regarding their impact on society and control of advertising dollars. I have my own story about them. My story […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
You wouldn’t buy a turkey without a left-wing, but Americans buy a lot of news stories without a left-wing I’m not on the right or left but still can’t help noticing that the adjective “right-wing” is used in the media about eight times more than the adjective “left-wing.” Not only that but the former is typically […]
Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
Their eager participation in the tuition loan scam reveals their hypocrisy, greed, and political self-dealing. American universities pride themselves on instilling communitarian values in students and enlightening them about social justice, diversity, and inclusion. It’s debatable whether their particular take on these important subjects has brought benefits or harm to society. It’s not debatable, however, […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
The company’s woke employees don’t see the irony of being headquartered in wealthy Los Gatos. The Wall Street Journal ran a news story recently about demonstrations at Netflix in response to comedian Dave Chappelle’s supposed transgressions against transsexuals. Here’s an excerpt: “In a list of demands sent to Netflix management, a group of transgender […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
As Martin Luther wrote, “The time for silence is past and the time to speak has come.” DW News out of Berlin recently ran a major story on its evening newscast, which is broadcast in America on PBS. No, it wasn’t about skyrocketing energy prices due to Green policies. Nor was it about Russia holding […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
Editors’ Note: It should be remembered that the federalization of the student loan programs in the United States was accomplished by a Senate amendment to Obamacare late on Christmas Eve in 2009 when the Senate had a filibuster-proof 60 vote majority (58 Ds and 2 Independents) and voted Obamacare into existence. The federal takeover of student loans […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
There’s a much better name for the day, one that captures the true spirit of today’s America October 11 was Indigenous Peoples Day. It used to be called Columbus Day before it became woke. Unlike some of my fellow Italians, I don’t have heartburn over the demise of Columbus Day. However, the silly wokeness behind […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
That’s especially so on immigration, Amazon, and the minimum wage. The Tucson establishment often misses the bigger picture in the pursuit of transitory feel-good measures. Take the subjects of immigration, Amazon, and the minimum wage—subjects that I don’t have ideological or partisan heartburn over but do care that Tucson is consigning itself to permanent also-ran […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
Musings and questions from a left-wing socialist who is also a right-wing supremacist. Americans are so divided on immigration and other issues that one risks being typecast as either a left-wing socialist or a right-wing supremacist for daring to send something around that one side or the other dislikes. Given that I believe that both political […]
Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
A review and overview of The Cult of Smart, by Fredrik deBoer, All Points Books, 276 pages. Fredrik deBoer is the author of The Cult of Smart, a book that unwittingly explains the sharp left turn of the Democrat Party and a growing number of young Americans. It also shows why the widening chasm between […]
Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
What history tells us about today’s identity politics. It’s an article of faith that diversity is a strength, a faith that appeals to me, given that I spent a career at the leading edge of equal opportunity, affirmative action (i.e., outreach), and, before it was hijacked by radicals and anti-intellectuals, the diversity movement. Even […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
The Rip Van Winkle media just woke up to realize that the U.S. is diverse. Like a well-rehearsed church choir singing from the same hymnal, the American media recently sang in perfect harmony about the latest U.S. Census showing that America is now so diverse that whites are in the minority. Not one media outlet […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Certainly not large numbers of greens, politicians, climate bureaucrats, economists, elites in business and Hollywood, and left/right reporters and commentators. A few decades ago, I headed an influential environmental group in the competitive media centers of New York City and northern New Jersey. To establish trust with the press, the public, and politicians, my four […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
And why Pawan Dhingra has it wrong about extracurricular learning. Starting in elementary school and continuing through high school, aspiring athletes are encouraged by parents, coaches, and society at large to spend considerable hours training and practicing outside of the school day and off-campus, oftentimes at the additional cost of private leagues and coaches. And […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
The city gets fifteen-dollar jobs from Amazon while other cities get the company’s six-figure jobs. Local news outlets were all aflutter about Amazon recently announcing that it would be hiring hundreds of workers at $15.50 per hour for its sortation center near the Tucson airport. That’s actually bad news. What could possibly be bad news […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
The left accuses the right of fascism, the right accuses the left of socialism, and both engage in corporatism. Corporatism is the organization of the body politic and the economy by interest groups, such as farmers, corporations, banks, media, labor unions, educators, government agencies, and professional guilds. It’s difficult to find a more sobering example […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
But Trump was vilified and persecuted for unproven allegations of collusion. I’m far from being a Trump groupie or apologist but do love to read history, especially when it reveals that a beloved figure from the past had been guilty of the same accusations leveled today against a presently maligned figure, whatever the party affiliation […]
Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
The forces that almost brought General Motors to its knees are even more powerful and ferocious today. Water buffaloes in Africa can be driven to madness and to their knees by swarms of flies. The flies came to mind as a perfect metaphor when reading “The Sack of Detroit,” the fascinating and balanced book authored […]
Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
Editors’ note: A great holiday read and a superb dose of reality!! How scholarship has given way to polemics that divide the nation Scene: A Barnes & Noble bookstore in Tucson, Arizona. Just inside the door are display tables of featured books and best-sellers. They reveal how scholarship has given way to polemics that divide […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Years ago it was popular for companies to sponsor a day for employees to take their kids to the office to see where mom or dad worked. My wife got stuck with organizing one of the days for her employer. In an introductory exercise, she had the kids sit around a conference table and take […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
How the pendulum of race has swung from one extreme to another. The month of May was “Asian and Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Month.” Although that jumble of words was repeated for thirty-one days, l still don’t know what the words mean. I could ask an in-law who was born and raised in the Catholic […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Mentioning the complexities and nuances of environmentalism in today’s partisan divide is a surefire way of being called names. If you want to start a fight and be typecast as either an ignorant left-winger or a reactionary right-winger, mention that some hot-button issue held dearly by one side or the other is more complex and […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
What comes to mind when you think of Baltimore? What comes to my mind is high crime, high poverty, widespread blight, a corrupt one-party government, and the TV series “The Wire,” which is set in Baltimore. What comes to mind when you think of my adopted hometown of Tucson? What comes to my mind is […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
A shameful story that begins at an exclusive country club I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was the epitome of white privilege as a kid, a privilege that carried over to adulthood. When I was fifteen and sixteen, for example, summer days were spent at an exclusive country club in a leafy suburb of […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
A wedding reveals the real America, not the America of the so-called wokes. TUCSON – The scene: a wedding and reception at a rustic adobe chapel surrounded by several acres of natural desert in the middle of metro Tucson. The historic locale had been the center of a Mexican immigrant community 120 years ago. The […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
Pick the points that support your ideology and ignore the rest, as is done by the left/right media and most Americans. Below are points about the African-American experience, especially the experience with shootings by cops. In totality, the points show that this issue, like most issues, is complex, nuanced and not black-and-white. But if confirmation […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
A fantasy about hundreds of minority groups demanding recognition after being excluded from diversity and inclusion initiatives. TUCSON – Hundreds of minority groups excluded from diversity and inclusion initiatives can now join the Federation of Real Minorities, or FORM. Membership is open to anyone from an ethnocultural group that comprises less than three percent of […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
From new reports that people sent me: In the name of equity (i.e., equal outcomes by race), the Virginia Department of Education is moving to eliminate all accelerated math options prior to 11th grade, effectively keeping higher-achieving students from advancing as they usually would. Because news coverage on the left and right is so pitifully biased, […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
Their coverage of the former chancellor of New York schools was different, but their use of contrived racial conventions is the same. TUCSON – On February 26, Richard Carranza resigned as the chancellor of New York City schools. His resignation was covered quite differently by two ideologically opposed publications. The main daily newspaper in Tucson, […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
TUCSON – A recent story in the Arizona Daily Star mentioned Tucson’s best export. No, the story wasn’t about the talented young people who leave Tucson for better opportunities elsewhere, due to a dearth of opportunities in their hometown— which in turn is due to decades of Tucson chasing industry away. Talented young people are […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
TUCSON – San Francisco and the larger Bay Area, including Silicon Valley, are collectively known as the nation’s center of progressivism, or left-liberalism. But metro Tucson deserves that reputation much more than the Bay Area. Both Tucson and San Francisco have been controlled for decades by one party, the Democrat Party. Both have establishment leaders who follow […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
Will Tucsonans finally be shaken out of their apathy? TUCSON – With its new policing policy, the City of Tucson might become the dystopia that New York City was in the 1980s. As background, I moved from Phoenix to metro New York in 1981, when the Big Apple was rotting. Back then, New York was […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
TUCSON – News stories in the local Tucson media put a positive spin on Amazon’s announcement that it is building a 270,000 square foot “sortation” center near the Tucson airport, which will create hundreds of jobs paying a starting wage of $15 per hour. Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry said, “Amazon’s newest location, adjacent to […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
Judging by what they say and write, reporters, commentators, academics, and directors of diversity and inclusion see themselves as experts on race and diversity. Many of them see racism and inequalities everywhere, based on the official but contrived racial categories of African American, Hispanic, White, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native American. The following test will […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
Tucson can’t win. Although the city is 43% Latino, it isn’t diverse enough to attract big, rich companies. It will have to accept its fate of having a poverty rate twice the national average, along with a corresponding high crime rate, substandard K-12 schools, and college graduates who leave for more prosperous cities with better opportunities—in spite […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
A Neanderthal asks what would happen if the government were to stop tracking everyone’s race. America’s longtime obsession with race seems to be turning into a collective psychosis—one that has also infected me. Americans are bombarded daily with news stories and commentaries, some accurate and some wildly false, about racial disparities, injustices and prejudices. Employees […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
Every year, an oddball reads the General Accounting Office’s audit of the financial statements of the U.S. government and writes about the alarming findings, although no one else seems to care about the issue, especially the two guilty parties, the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. Because both parties are guilty of cooking the nation’s […]
Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
The racial diversity movement began with R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., with his 1990 Harvard Business Review article, “From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity.” His thesis was that with the growth of racial minorities in the nation, it would behoove companies to have more diversity in their ranks if they wanted to understand their customers, in […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
That’s what Coca-Cola wants me to do. A diversity training program at Coca-Cola gives pointers on how to be less white. I’m going to take it to heart and try to be more Asian, in ways that I’ll describe momentarily. First, as background, the program said that the way to be less white is to: be […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
As a classical liberal, or, in today’s parlance, a libertarian, I wasn’t in sync with Rush Limbaugh’s brand of conservatism but admired his intelligence, courage, wit, and good nature. I also didn’t see him a right-winger, unlike America’s conservative newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ labeled Limbaugh as a right-winger in the headline of […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
Lincoln blamed his loss to Douglas on immigrants, vote tampering, and flexible voter registration laws. I’m not an election denier who believes that Biden stole the election, but am enough of a history buff to know that voter fraud has been commonplace throughout American history. To that point, halfway down this page is a fascinating […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
According to the Bible, the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. Likewise, homeowners on a suburban street in Pima County, in metro Tucson, have been wandering in the desert for 40 years why their street hasn’t been repaved. To the last point, below is a complaint sent by an unidentified citizen to Pima […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
After saving us in the Revolutionary War, will it save us from wokeness? France deserves our gratitude, at least from those of us who believe that America is worth saving in spite of its imperfections. First, France helped us in winning the Revolutionary War. That would be the war that is claimed by today’s poorly […]
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
Below are ubiquitous words parroted by the media, academia, industry, and government that doesn’t mean what you might think they mean. Following each word is its true meaning. Race: A social construct that has no basis in genetics but has been used historically to divide people for political purposes and is used today for the […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
Whether they were atheist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Confucian, or anything else, one of the most moving experiences of humanity was the message of the Apollo 8 astronauts on Christmas Eve, 1968, as they left lunar orbit and headed for the blue and white planet of Earth, which stood out in the blackness of space. […]
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
It’s hard to believe, but they even surpass Republicrats and Republicrites in phoniness and laughing at the hoi polloi. The Wall Street journal recently ran a 2,420 word essay that details the sordid international dealings of Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Joe’s brother, James Biden. Unfortunately, the article is 2,420 words too long for the tweet […]