Authors and Editorial Staff

Click on an author’s name to go to their individual article pages.

Joe Gandelman (Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Moderate Voice) spent many years as a freelance writer overseas and as a full-time reporter on the staffs of two newspapers in the United States — and as a professional ventriloquist across America.

Gandelman interned as a journalist on The Hindustan Times in New Delhi, and wrote and/or worked for many newspapers including the Chicago Daily News, the Wichita Eagle-Beacon, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Christian Science Monitor. His work has appeared on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” and in the Argus South African Newspapers, Baltimore Sun, Miami Herald, Winnipeg (Canada) Free Press , Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), Aftenposten (Norway), and Haaretz (Israel), among others. Gandelman was awarded his Baccalaureate Degree in Political Science from Colgate University, and his Masters in Journalism is from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He also performs as a ventriloquist across the country, was on NBC’s “Spy TV” and VH1′s “The Cho Show,” and is included in the nationally-distributed The Great Ventriloquists trading cards.

He has appeared on political news show panels on MSNBC and CNN. CNN’s John Avlon named him as one of the top 25 Centrists Columnists and Commentators. He writes a weekly political column that is syndicated nationally by Cagle Cartoons. He is a regular contributor to The Week online.

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Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, (Managing Editor and Columnist) is fondly known to her colleagues as ‘Dr. E.’ She’s a registered Independent, once belonging to both wild Democratic and wilder Republican parties. A Latina Catholic, she was raised in an immigrant/refugee family in small-town Indiana (Pop: 600). She writes about political psychology and cultural groups, including age, racial, gender, military, corporate, governmental, mainstream and sub-cultural minority groups.

Governor’s appointee to the Colorado State Grievance Board, 1993-2006, serving as Chair in conjunction with a Colorado District Attorney, today she continues her work as a “consultant in human behavior” and lifelong activist for schools, legislation, lawyers, judges, and private interests. She testifies on policy before state and federal legislatures, and is a Latino diversity scholar. She teaches law students, medical residents, and journalists about the influential tenets of ‘telling the story’ powerfully in clinical and trial settings, through film, television, and the written word. She is a board member of the Authors Guild, NY, and a member of the Hispanic Journalists Association. She is a former welfare mother who aimed for college; earned a post-doctoral diploma as a certified Jungian Psychoanalyst, via charter of IAAP, Zurich. Dr. E. is also the author of the depth psychology book, Women Who Run With the Wolves, published in 32 languages worldwide and on the New York Times best seller list for 144 weeks. (Wikipedia).

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T-Steel is 37-year old information technology consultant and “journeyman” futurist from South Carolina. Tyrone began his IT career at Fortune 500 firms and is currently providing ITIL process consulting and IT management for various small, medium, and large businesses nationally and internationally. He is also a member of the World Future Society and is active in local and national futurist events and workshops. Politically, T-Steel describes himself a member of the Slant Wing. As he says, “I move slantways away from liberals and conservatives, yet I feel them both”.

T-Steel is “infinitely” and happily married, with three children ages 13, 12, and 8.

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Brij Khindaria is an independent media person based in Europe. He began with Reuters in London and wrote for The Financial Times and other media. Currently, he is a specialist writer for publications in Britain, the US and India. He follows most major diplomatic meetings in Europe, e.g. G8, NATO, European Union and the United Nations. His areas are peace, development and human rights. He has authored several works. He also teaches the Seed of Creative Action, which is a form of meditation derived from Indian Ayurveda (Knowledge of life). He writes mystical poetry in Hindi, English and French.

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Swaraaj Chauhan, Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.) Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a five-decade-old business, art and culture monthly promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi. In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy. He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.

In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in the two eastern States in India —West Bengal and Orissa. Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking; and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia. Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there. He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation. And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others

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Robert Stein, editor, publisher, media critic and journalism teacher, is a former Chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and author of “Media Power: Who Is Shaping Your Picture of the World?” He now publishes the blog Connecting The Dots. Before the war in Iraq, he wrote in The New York Times: “I see a generation gap in the debate over going to war in Iraq. Those of us who fought in World War II know there was no instant or easy glory in being part of ‘The Greatest Generation,’ just as we knew in the 1990s that stock-market booms don’t last forever. We don’t have all the answers, but we want to spare our children and grandchildren from being slaughtered by politicians with a video-game mentality.” This is not meant to extol geezer wisdom but suggest that, even in our age of 24/7 hot flashes, something can be said for perspective. The Web is a wide space for spreading news, but it can also be a deep well of collective memory to help us understand today’s world. In olden days, tribes kept village elders around to remind them with which foot to begin the ritual dance. Start the music.

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Holly Robinson AKA Holly in Cincinnati AKA Helaine K. Robinson CSI CCS CCCA SCIP is a freelance writer, editor and proofreader with more than 25 years of experience in the commercial/institutional design and construction industry. A Jewish lesbian feminist, she serves on 3 non-profit boards while engaging in political and social activism, web design, freelance do-gooding and constructive trouble-making. You may contact Holly at hollyrob19[at]gmail.com

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The Talking Dog is the nom de guerre of the Brooklyn, NY based blogger who began blogging under that name in September, 2001 (before the term “blog” was in vogue) about a week after he found himself across the street from the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001 (he worked a block from WTC then, as he does now). In other bizarre historical coincidences, TTD graduated Columbia College in 1983, in the same class as Barack Obama (among other luminaries), and TTD shares a birthday with Hillary Clinton (and Pat Sajak). When not blogging, TTD is a lawyer with a responsible sounding day-job. He has also run 18 marathons in 9 different states… and counting, despite no discernible athletic talent. With his sui generis interviews of figures associated with “the war on terror”, particularly detention policy, he is one of the world’s most active journalists in that area, despite neither being a journalist nor having any writing talent. TTD considers himself “center-right” as he has for decades (having started his legal career in the Justice Department during the Reagan Administration), but as the political spectrum has changed and he and his views really haven’t, he is now considered “arch-liberal” by most others.

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Robin Koerner
is the 32 year-old British creator and publisher of www.WatchingAmerica.com, a website that reflects global opinion about the United States by aggregating and translating foreign press articles. Having lived on three continents, and traveled extensively, he moved to the U.S to establish a consulting and property investment company. His degrees, from the University of Cambridge (England), are in physics and philosophy. He is an entrepreneur who has worked as a corporate strategist, a teacher, editor and now increasingly as a commentator: a wide range of experience, the ground-breaking content on Watching America, and simply being an outsider on the inside, all inform his perspective on the United States – a country he loves.

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William Kern was Editor-in-Chief of WatchingAmerica.com. He has been a copy editor and news designer on three continents, most recently at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. He has currently started up WorldMeets.US

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Cagle Cartoons are Daryl Cagle’s always thought-provoking, political, and social cartoons.

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Joerg Wolf is founder and editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Review, a blog on transatlantic relations sponsored by the German Fulbright Alumni Association. He currently works as head of research of the Atlantic Community, a new online magazine of the Atlantic Initiative in Berlin. Joerg studied political science at the Free University of Berlin and worked as a research associate for the international Risk Policy project at the Free University’s Center for Transatlantic Foreign and Security Policy. He has been a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Washington DC and has worked for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Cairo and in Berlin.

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Jill Miller Zimon is an award-winning freelance writer, editor and political blogger. She participates as a regional roundtable panelist for Cleveland public radio and television. She provides commentary and presentations to groups on the intersection of blogging, new media, journalism and politics. She was one of four Ohio bloggers in the now defunct Plain Dealer/cleveland.com blog experiment, Wide Open (blog.cleveland.com/wideopen). Zimon’s blog, Writes Like She Talks (www.writeslikeshetalks.com), has consistently ranked in the top 10 of all Ohio political blogs. Zimon also writes a bi-monthly column for Cleveland Family magazine. Her features, op-eds and essays have been published in The Plain Dealer, Sun News papers, Writer’s Digest, Quill, and other print and online markets. 2004-06, she covered Euclid High School’s transition into six small schools for KnowledgeWorks Foundation, an implementing agency for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s education reform programs.

For eight years prior to her journalism career, Zimon used her joint degree in law and social work (Case Western Reserve University) at a large children and family mental health agency. Zimon is a New England native and has a joint bachelors degree in government and sociology from Georgetown University. Other experiences of which Zimon is most proud include her work in the U.S. Department of Justice, an internship on Capitol Hill, living and traveling alone overseas, working in an Ivy League college’s development office and performing clinical assessment for juvenile court cases. She has lived in Northern Ohio for nearly 20 years.

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Bridget Magnus has lived many places and done many things, but she is now a Realtor in Fabulous Las Vegas. This was almost inevitable, as her family has been in property management for four generations. She holds degrees in Music Composition from Texas Wesleyan University and Southern Methodist University, where she trained as a researcher and discovered a love of finding information. Since 2003, her writings on such topics as politics, economics, business, and education have been posted regularly at ShortWoman.com (musings on real estate are at her eponymous site). Bridget speaks 3 languages (English, French, and Japanese); her current hobbies include reading and book collecting, study of Japan and Japanese culture, cooking and baking, Shaolin Kempo (Purple Belt) and Video Gaming. Her favorite charities are Child’s Play, Safe Nest, and Candlelighters.

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Dennis Sanders, an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), was born in Flint, Michigan in 1969. A 1991 graduate from Michigan State University with a degree in journalism, he received his Master of Divinity from Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn. Pastor of Community of Grace Christian Church, a church he helped start in Minneapolis from 2004-07, he currently works as a Media Specialist/Web Master for the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, and as a regular, supply preaching throughout Minneapolis/St. Paul. Dennis has been involved in politics since his teens, and jokes that his New Deal Democratic parents gave birth to an Eisenhower Republican. He’s been involved in several Centrist Republican groups including a stint as State Coordinator for Republicans for Enviromental Protection and State President of Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota, basically being the black, gay poster boy of moderate Republicanism.

Involved with blogging since 2002 when he started the Moderate Republican; that blog was retired 2006 to make way for NeoMugwump where he blogs about all things political. On his other blog, Oscar the Pastor, he muses on religious and spiritual issues. Dennis lives with his partner Daniel in Minneapolis, and is the faithful servant to his two cats.

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Michael Silverstein is a novelist, poet, and satirical commentator. Over the years he has published a dozen books of prose on a variety of serious and not-so-serious topics ranging from politics, to the environment, to alternative energy, to the evils of excess parking ticketing. His poetry was regularly featured on National Public Radio¹s ³Marketplace Morning Report² and published in two books of satirical verse. His political commentary has run in scores of high profile publications including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, et. al. Silverstein honed has knowledge of financial markets as a senior editor with Bloomberg Financial News in Princeton. He currently resides in Philadelphia with painter and First Friday TV video producer Kay Wood.

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Joe Windish is an accomplished video and web producer. His independent work has been seen on local and national television, and on Josh Harris’s Pseudo.com, one of the earliest commercial webcast channels. For twelve years he was the director of a non-profit community television center, where he launched an early community Internet service. Through the Dot Com Bubble, he was a senior producer at Mediapolis, a Manhattan-based web engineering and design firm. In 2003, after 28 years of living and working in New York City, Joe moved to rural Georgia, following his life-partner who accepted a position as a professor at a public liberal arts college. He is now a technology specialist at the college, where he manages the campus computer labs. “The biggest lesson I’ve learned from moving to the South,” says Joe, “is how much we have to learn from our differences, and how wrong our assumptions can be. A curious and questioning left-leaning contrarian by nature, I try to practice a willingness to open and change my mind, and start from a place that doesn’t already know the answers. The New Yorker in me still finds that very hard to do!”

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Dorian de Wind is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and aerospace/defense executive who enjoys writing and teaching. Originally an author of technical textbooks and articles, Dorian now contributes opinion, travel and personal experience articles to newspapers, and is a prolific letters-to-the-editor writer. He also translates Dutch and Spanish press articles for Watchingamerica.com. A native of Ecuador, Dorian was educated in The Netherlands and in the U.S. (Texas A&M, University, Math/Physics, Summa Cum Laude; Univ. of Southern Mississippi, MS Telecommunications; doctoral work in Computer Science at the University of Oklahoma). He has taught undergraduate and graduate computer science courses at City Colleges of Chicago, Oklahoma State University and at U.S. Military institutions. His proudest award and achievement are the Freedoms Foundation George Washington Honor Medal and having been responsible for the reception, welfare and resettlement of over 400 South Vietnamese refugees at the end of the Vietnam War. He has resided and worked extensively abroad (Ecuador, The Netherlands, Germany, England, Belgium and Saudi Arabia) but is now happily settled in the beautiful USA.

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Tony Campbell Tony Campbell is an Adjunct Professor (Department of Political Science) at Towson University teaching American National Government and Political Theory. He is also a National Elections 2010 Examiner at Examiner.com. Tony ran for Congress in 1998 and was the Republican nominee for Baltimore City Council President in 1999. Campbell has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science, a Masters of Arts in Religion, a Masters of Science Degree (MS) in Social Science, and he is finishing a Masters of Divinity in Chaplaincy at Liberty University. He is a former Congressional Staff member as well as a Political Appointee of President George W. Bush at the Social Security Administration.

Currently, living in Maryland, he is an Army National Guard Chaplain and an ordained minister. Tony has one son, Taylor (17) and is an avid reader, a lackluster golfer, and still has a decent jump shot from outside the three-point college line. Tony can be reached at electionsexaminer@gmail.com

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Patrick Edaburn is an attorney with a practice focusing on bankruptcy and estate planning. A resident of Northern California since he was 4 years old he currently lives in the Stockton/Lodi area. He has been active in politics since childhood and has served as a countywide official with the Republican Party. He hopes someday to run for public office, although at this point he feels too liberal to run as a Republican and too conservative to run as a Democrat. In addition to his work on The Moderate Voice he is currently at work on his first novel, although at this point he remains uncertain as to who might publish it.

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Kathy E. Gill covered politics for About.com from July 2004-Feburary 2009; previously, she had written about agriculture for TheMiningCompany/About.com. She has been online since the early 1990s, having discovered CompuServe before Marc Andreessen launched Mosaic at the University of Illinois in 1993. She ran one of the first political candidate web sites in Washington State in 1995, and today she teaches digital communication at the University of Washington, where she focuses on the intersection of technology and society, especially institutions of power like government and media. She is finalizing a book about Twitter.

She is a former state and federal lobbyist and a critic of both national parties. She has worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture as well as USDA; she also served on the Washington State Department of Ecology Water Resources Forum and Solid Waste Advisory Committee. She studied in Oslo, Norway while in college (University of Georgia) and has also traveled throughout Europe as well as the Carribean, Mexico and Canada, Central America, northern Africa, Asia, Indonesia and New Zealand. Australia and Chile are on her wish list, as is mainland China and India. She also writes at WiredPen, FlipTheMedia and Newsvine. When not writing or teaching, she can probably be found on one of her motorcycles. Follow her on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

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David Adesnik is a defense analyst in Washington DC. He is a contributor to Doublethink magazine and its blog, Conventional Folly. David worked full-time on the foreign policy staff of John McCain’s presidential campaign from April through November of 2008. Before joining the campaign staff, he spent four months in Iraq as a civilian analyst with the Coalition’s counter-IED task force. David received his doctorate in international relations from Oxford, writing his dissertation on democracy promotion in the Reagan era. Beginning in 2002, David was a contributor and later editor-in-chief of OxBlog, on behalf of which he covered the GOP convention in 2004. David has published articles in The Weekly Standard, The Washington Quarterly and Foreign Policy and provided commentary for NPR and the BBC.

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Marc Pascal obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, business and law (BA, JD & MBA) over 15 years ago after attending various universities including Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He also studied classical piano for over 20 years including all through college but he has not performed publicly in over 25 years. He lived, traveled and studied numerous times in Europe where his family has roots, gaining a high level of proficiency in French and Italian.

Between 1986 and 1998, Mr. Pascal served for several years in succession as the in-house counsel for 2 large corporations, and he also periodically practiced business law in Cleveland in various loose partnerships with a few other attorneys. Between 1991 and 2006, he started and managed 4 different new business ventures based in Chicago or Cleveland with various friends, all of which were a lot more fun. He is particularly interested in joint public-private ventures in urban redevelopment, mass transit and high speed rail. In 2006, Mr. Pascal moved to Arizona with his spouse and their young son. For the past 3 years, he has been an independent management and business consultant serving various private enterprises in the Phoenix area.
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Peter Orvetti is a journalist, writer, and homeschooling parent residing in Washington, D.C. From 1997 to 2002, he ran Orvetti.com, a Webby Award-nominated political news website. A former theology student, Orvetti published a spiritual memoir entitled “Reconciliation: A Half Life” in 2009.
Peter_Orvetti at Wikipedia; his publisher, outskirtspress; his book at Amazon

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Elijah Sweete is an attorney who after graduating from university in Philosophy and English Literature, minor in Business Administration, moved on to law school, where he was a two time university intramural men’s racquetball champion. After graduation, law review, honor society and several American Jurisprudence awards in hand, he served a clerkship with a state supreme court justice, then moved to a major international law firm, doing ACLU volunteer work in his spare time. Learning there was a shortage of death penalty defense attorneys, and bored with making buckets of money, he left high-rise office life for the mud pit of death penalty work, and also job-shared a trial court judgeship on the side. Publications include co-authoring legal works on several subjects, including the rights of seniors and disabled Americans, and an ABA award winning book on “legal ethics”, a phrase he describes as an oxymoron.
He has served on a dozen charitable boards, including four years as National Board Chair of one of the ‘big four’ health charities. Though a registered Independent, he has worked in political campaigns for both parties, including two successful Republican Senatorial campaigns. In the late 1990’s he was the subject of a recruitment effort by the national Republican Party to run for congress. He declined. Today he serves as general counsel for a group of eighteen companies headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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Doug Bursch
Radio host, speaker, writer, pastor, teacher and evangelist, co-pastoring Evergreen Foursquare Church in Auburn, Washington along with pastor Dan Behrens. Adjunct professor for Life Pacific College and a guest speaker at various churches. “I write a column for The Auburn Reporter and guest post on various blogs and websites. Monday – Friday from 4-6 pm I host “Live from Seattle with Doug Bursch” on 820 AM KGNW. Our talk show tackles everyday issues facing ordinary people. Consequently, our topics range between the profound and the trivial; the sacred and the secular; the awe inspiring and the downright perplexing.

I’m married to my extremely lovely and tolerant wife Jennifer. She’s my better two-thirds! Together we have four equally adorable children named Kysa, Anna, Nathaneal, and Samuel. In my spare time, I enjoy spending hours watching my favorite Seattle sports teams lose. Except for this year, because this year things are going to be way better than last year. I mean, there is no way we could do as badly as last year. And so the delusional thinking continues. If you want to learn more about me, check out www.fairlyspiritual.org or www.kgnw.com ”
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Logan Penza has worn multiple hats over the last 20 years and is currently back on campus, working on yet another advanced degree. He enjoys reading, thinking, and writing about a diverse slate of topics, from domestic politics to legal matters; from foreign policy to military affairs.

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Tom Briscoe is the cartoonist behind Small World, the love child of an editorial cartoon and comic strip. It covers subjects from politics to pop culture to hating cats. Due to the bipartisan nature of being boneheaded, Small World is guaranteed to never run out of things to make fun of. Tom Briscoe’s work is published regularly in alternative press newsweeklies and is also syndicated online at GoComics.com

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Nancy Hanks is a provocateur/ pundit/ organizer and long-time activist in the independent political movement “who’s done it all: petitioning to put independent candidates on the ballot from New York to Texas and points east, west, north and south; fundraising for the independent think tank, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), and its online counterpart, IndependentVoting.org ; running as an independent for New York City Council from Queens, New York City’s most diverse borough; serving as the current Treasurer of the Queens County Committee of the Independence Party of New York (of the IP NYC Organizations ); conducting research for the Neo-Independent , a magazine that addresses the concerns of independent voters. Her blog, The Hankster, is a news source for independent voters that got up and running in April, 2006, and is now the country’s preeminent independent political blog. Its boast: “All the news that gives the parties fits!”

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D. R. Welch works for the Department of Transportation in a southern state. He graduated a southern land grant college with a degree in civil engineering. He worked for local government for a few years out of college then was an employee/stockholder and branch manager for a mid-sized engineering firm for 10 years. Having been a cost center at the firm, he is too familiar with making payroll and delivering an acceptable rate of return for stockholders. Six years ago he returned to public service. He has written several unpublished novels and frequently blogs.
He loves the practice of geotechnical and environmental engineering and frequently says, “I never got over building roads, dams and bridges in the sand box.” In the practice of environmental engineering he has learned to balance good stewardship with commerce. “There are not always easy right and wrong answers when it comes to environmental engineering. There are only gray areas in which we may coexist,” he says. On infrastructure, Welch tells us we are borrowing from our children not unlike the national debt. “Parents have to know neglecting maintenance today will cost their children ten times in the future. At some point we will just have to stop building new highways and adding lanes to maintain what we have,” he says. Mr. Welch loves the term “militant moderate.”
He believes only lazy people look for labels and ideology to decide an issue. “The Constitution, a document which delicately balances the hopes and fears of a people, were in Congress today, it wouldn’t even make it out of committee,” he says. “Moderates, compromisers and deal makers made this country and it is their destiny to keep the right and left from tearing it apart.” Welch is known for asking someone, “why do you feel that way or on what basis have you made your decision?” If he hears party talking points, even when he agrees, he relentlessly pursues the speaker’s justification until the person really understands the question and the answer.

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Prairie Weather, a former New Englander, lives on the lam in rural Texas. Some years back PW, artist by trade, had returned from a couple of decades living and working overseas in other languages and landscapes, and got involved with developing an international cultural exchange program. That experience, coupled with memories of childhood in a family of movers and shakers, left PW with an Attitude about money and power and their effect on what was once our self-governance. PW has some opinions about how the left allowed itself to get left behind.
The addiction to writing began as soon as computers hit the market. PW went looking for excuses to own one. Remember the Osborne? remember telnetting? remember graduating to 64 mb? Ever play Free Cell in a dream?
In addition to “PrairieWeather” (for daily rants), PW blogs at “FindersKeepers” (found objects) and “TheScribe” (interviews heard and transcribed, low-tech method).
Political views? They’re considerably to the left of contemporary Democrats but include an interest in and respect for genuine conservativism, now rare in the US. PW can live with rage for short periods but cannot live without humor.
Prairie Weather has no use for TV but has a self-indulgent account for book purchases at Amazon as well as a dependency issue with Netflix. PW feels enormous respect for the writers at TMV and for myriad graceful, honest bloggers who inhabit other parts of the web. Imagine what our country would be like without them.

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Rick Bayan is founder-editor of The New Moderate, a blog for the “passionate centrist” who’s unafraid to consider radical remedies when the nation tips dangerously to the right or left. Born and raised in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rick graduated with honors from Rutgers College with a degree in history. Finding himself virtually unemployable, he picked up a master’s in journalism from the University of Illinois. There he discovered the writings of vintage journalist-curmudgeon H. L. Mencken and found his calling, which would have to be deferred for a few decades while he survived as an editor and advertising copywriter. He took his day job seriously enough to win half a dozen advertising awards and write Words That Sell, a thesaurus that became a standard reference book in his field. He’s also the author of The Cynic’s Dictionary (“revolutionary: an oppressed person waiting for the opportunity to become an oppressor”) and webmaster of The Cynic’s Sanctuary. Rick lives with his young son and an elderly cat in a converted 115-year-old livery stable in Philadelphia. He serves on the board of Americans United to Rebuild Democracy and was present at the launch of NoLabels in December 2010. A longtime history buff, he’s one of the few people alive who can do a reasonably accurate vocal impression of Teddy Roosevelt.

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Ron Beasley graduated from college in 1968 and then suddenly found himself an interrogator and analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency. After leaving the DIA in the mid 70s he rediscovered his inner hippie. But that didn’t last long – after marriage and children he found himself in the corporate world as a manufacturing engineer. That included gray pin stripe suits and corporate jets. But the opportunity to rediscover the inner hippie occurred in 2001 when his company and his job was sent to China. Since then he has attempted to make a living in photography, graphic arts and web design. Ron had his own blog, Middle Earth Journal for several years and then moved to Newshoggers. Ron writes book reviews and if you are interested he can be reached at mailto:ronbeas@gmail.com

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Sean McElwee graduated from The King’s College with a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 2013. While attending King’s he was a writer for the Empire State Tribune and a columnist for The Lewis Review. He splits his time between New York City and Connecticut. During his time in college he interned for Fox Business News, CBS News and the Reason Foundation. He is interested in everything and rejects all ideological labels preferring what Plato called the “golden mean” – the center between two extremes. His pieces have been published in The Day and The Norwich Bulletin and on WashingtonMonthly.com and Reason.com.

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Robert A. Levine
A Vietnam vet and a Columbia history major who became a medical doctor, Bob Levine is also an author who has published four books, two related to politics, one about aging, and one about preventing dementia. He has watched the evolution of American politics over the past 40 years with increasing alarm and believes that a strong centrist third party is necessary to restore democracy and take control from the lobbyists and special interests. Massive cash contributions, corruption, and partisanship have undermined real democracy through the current duopoly of Republicans and Democrats. Levine’s book, Resurrecting Democracy, shows why a centrist third party is needed and how it can be realized. His previous book, Shock Therapy For the American Health Care System takes a pragmatic approach to health care reform and cost control from a physician’s informed point of view. Aging With Attitude reveals what is necessary for all of us to age well, and is also a philosophy about the aging process. Defying Dementia informs people what they can do actively to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Besides blogging regularly about politics, Levine is currently working on several new books

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Janet Shan is a freelance journalist, blogger, freelance financial and business writer. Additionally, she has worked as an operations manager, logistics analyst, public relations specialist and social media consultant. She is a regular contributor to the Johns Creek Patch in metro Atlanta. Janet specializes in political commentary from a centrist point of view, as well as social commentary.

She is the founder and managing editor of the Hinterland Gazette. She has appeared on several radio shows, as a regular contributor or as a guest. She is putting the finishing touches on her new novel, a mystery based in the hills on Montego Bay, Jamaica, where she was born. Janet is currently enrolled as an online student at Quinnipaic University, pursuing a MS in Interactive Media. Janet and husband are the proud parents of two boys, ages 15 and 11.

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Aaron Astor, a/k/a The Moderate Voice as “Elrod,” is Assistant Professor of American History at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee. Astor received his Ph.D. in History at Northwestern University in 2006 and his B.A. in Philosophy at Hamilton College in 1995. Astor’s research focuses on the 19th century South, the Civil War, and African American history. Astor brings a historical perspective to current events, seeking parallels and parables in the past whenever possible. His book on grassroots black and white politics in Kentucky and Missouri during the Civil War and Reconstruction will be released next year.

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Michael Stickings (Assistant Editor) is a senior policy adviser, Democratic Institutions, Cabinet Office, of the Government of Ontario, Canada. He did his B.A. at Tufts University before heading to Toronto to pursue graduate studies in political science and medieval studies. He is on leave from the University of Toronto, where he is a Ph.D. candidate in political science. His academic focus is the history of political philosophy, and his dissertation research examines the political thought of Matthew Arnold within the context of modern liberalism. He occasionally describes himself as a liberal Straussian. Michael is the founder and editor of The Reaction, a liberal group blog on politics, philosophy, science, and culture. He was a featured blogger at John Edwards One America Committee Blog and has been a guest blogger at The Carpetbagger Report. Aside from politics and blogging, his interests include writing and reading fiction, history, film, art history, Japanese culture, Pink Floyd, and fantasy sports. He loves the Montreal Canadiens and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He lives and works in Toronto and spends as much time as possible in England and Prince Edward Island.

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David Schraub is currently a law student at the University of Chicago. Starting in August 2011, he will be Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Illinois. He graduated magna cum laude from Carleton College, with distinction in Political Science. Prior to that, he was a circuit debater while attending Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland. Aside from his duties at The Moderate Voice, David writes his own blog, The Debate Link, and has published in several outlets, including The University of Chicago Law Review, The Carleton Progressive, The Lens Magazine, and The Dartmouth Law Journal. David’s research interests include anti-discrimination law, critical race theory, constitutional law, law and religion, and Judaic studies. He is a Conservative Jew.

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Greg Piper is the co-founder of Cultural Imperialist, a forum for satirical debate on the cultural and political inanities of the day. He covered the public policy interests of the Internet industry for five years as a journalist in Washington, DC, before moving to Seattle in the summer of 2010, where he continues to freelance and consider jumping to the dark side. Greg helped found PUNCH, an independent newspaper at Seattle Pacific University, where he graduated with a degree in political science in 2001. He has blogged since 2002.

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Polimom is the pseudonym for a [mumble-mumble]-year-old mom living in exurbia” a very ordinary person who could easily be your next door neighbor (and might in fact be!). She’s a genealogist, writer (for pleasure and occasional profit), and former college instructor whose academic background includes Criminal Justice, Counseling Psychology, and foreign languages. Raised by intellectually brilliant and well-educated parents” a hard left liberal and a far right conservative (some marriages are just doomed…)” she learned early that there can be validity and rationality to both sides of an argument, and ended up a Moderate in self-defense.

Since she doesn’t see politics as an intellectual exercise, she often writes in a more personalized context. Polimom is grateful every day that she took a backward approach to life; if she hadn’t played for as long as possible before getting married and having kids, she’d be story-less” completely unable to explain politics or world events to her gifted child… or to herself.

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Angela Winters is a writer, author and diversity consultant in the D.C. Metro area. She received her B.S. in Communications from The University of Illinois and is now pursuing her JD, specializing in Media & Communications Law. Her background is in public relations, diversity consulting and leadership development. She is the national bestselling author of 15 fiction novels, her most recent title is VIEW PARK a family saga. She is also the creator of the political blog, POLITOPICS, focused on centrist political commentary from a black perspective with an occasional non-political post or two.

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Mark Daniels has been an ordained Lutheran minister since 1984 and is pastor of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. He graduated from The Ohio State University in 1975. Immediately following his undergraduate years, Daniels was volunteer coordinator for a congressional campaign, a fund raiser at United Way, and supervisor of pages at the Ohio House of Representatives. Through his high school, college, and seminary years, he worked as everything from a janitor to fast food cook. Daniels’ writing has appeared in a number of dead-tree and online magazines. Before a recent relocation, he served as president of the Corporate Board of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Clermont County and on the county Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. In 2004, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Ohio House of Representatives. Daniels and his wife have been married since 1974. They have two grown children. Daniels has a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Studies Education from Ohio State and a Master of Divinity from Trinity Lutheran Seminary. His two favorite parting benedictions are, “Go Buckeyes!” and “God bless you!”

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Michael Grant is a journalist, educator and author living in La Mesa, CA, a suburb of San Diego. He is a native of Abilene, Texas, a graduate of Stanford University, and an Army veteran. In journalism since 1969, he has been a reporter, a sports writer, an editor, a feature writer, and a columnist. He was at The San Diego Union for 20 years and in 1990 began teaching journalism and media communications at Grossmont Community College near San Diego. He is the author of five books (including a cookbook), the latest being “Warbirds – How They Played the Game,” published in 2004. In September, 2007, he and his wife, Karen, founded The Write Outsource, an online writing services company. He also maintains his own blog at www.michaelgrant.com/blog.

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Elyas Bakhtiari is a writer and editor living in Boston, Massachusetts. He covers the healthcare industry for HealthLeaders Media and blogs about politics and policy at Ablogistan. Before moving to Boston he lived in San Antonio, Texas, where he studied Sociology and Political Science at Trinity University and worked briefly for the San Antonio Current covering local and state politics. Although politically left-of-center, he has lived in some of the most conservative and the most liberal areas of the United States and values moderate, reasoned discourse. With a father who immigrated from Afghanistan and a mother born in blue-collar Indiana, his unique upbringing in rural Tennessee has given him a one-of-a-kind perspective on politics and world affairs, particularly in the last few years.

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Dorji Badma is the pen name of a journalist currently living in exile from Tengri. Writing mainly editorials about cultural movements both large and small, the emphasis is on many points of view. Having a father who immigrated from the Urals and a mother who immigrated from the Carpathians brings insight from times past, hopefully, about the older roots of many modern matters.

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Jazz Shaw is an Internet marketing professional, author of unseen technical manuals, US Navy veteran and former member of the Republican Party from 1976 until 2005, now a registered independent. A veteran of several political campaigns in New York, he now pursues his avocational interests as a pundit wherever his singing will earn him a supper.

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A former managing editor of TMV, Pete Abel started his career in 1985 as a freelance reporter, and later as a full-time staff writer, for the St. Louis County Suburban Journals, covering municipal politics and local businesses. From 1989 until 2003, he worked for one of the world’s largest public affairs firms, and since 2003 has served as a public affairs executive for a broadband services company. In addition, he is an occasional commentator for St. Louis Public Radio and serves on the boards of Stages St. Louis and the Greater Missouri Chapter of the Tourette Syndrome Association.
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IN MEMORIUM
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TMV’s Jerry Remmers passed away in 2011. May he rest in peace. He wrote for TMV for several years: Below is his bio, and his articles are still held in the TMV archives.
Jerry K. Remmers was a veteran of 26 years in the newspaper business in addition to owning his own business as a landscape contractor. A graduate of the University of California at Davis majoring in political science, he worked for newspapers in Klamath Falls, Ore. and in California at the Tustin News, Orange Daily News, Santa Ana Register and Evening Tribune in San Diego. In 23 years at The Trib, he was a general assignment reporter, assistant city editor, county editor and politics editor. Remmers’ political perspective was moderate left on social issues and center-right on fiscal matters. A registered Democrat, Jer called himself ‘retired in Temecula, California,” but continued to write for TMV literally til the week before he died when he posted a heart-rending goodbye article, knowing he was going to pass from this world soon. Outstanding soul. He is missed greatly.
Editors Joe Gandelman and Dr. Estés from TMV

Jack Grant passed away in 2011, a good friend of TMV, a great spirit. Jack Grant (Assistant Editor) had been working in advanced research and development on new materials and processes used in semiconductor integrated circuits since 1991, but began blogging only since the end of January, 2003 (a date made memorable because his second blog post was on the breakup of the Space Shuttle Columbia over Texas, where he was located at the time). He began his personal weblog, Random Fate as a way of keeping family and friends updated regarding his impending expatriate assignment in France, but as the date for that relocation moved later and later, his weblog evolved into something beyond his original intent. After a 20 month sojourn as an expatriate in Grenoble, France, Jack returned to the United States in December of 2005 and in time married, in the process gaining two teenage children. Jack has been granted more than eight US and twelve international patents along with co-authoring over 35 technical papers and a textbook study guide for Physical Science (all under the name of “John M. Grant”). His personal weblog Random Fate was his most significant non-technical writing and has been nominated twice for the Weblog Awards in the “Best of” category for its ranking at the time in the weblog ecosystem. He was the first co-blogger invited to contribute to The Moderate Voice.
Rest in Peace Jack, all earthly concerns now be over.
Joe Gandelman, and Dr. Estés, TMV editors

Past Contributors
Jeb Koogler, Gary Butts, Damozel, Scott Payne, Justin Delabar, Jeremy Dibbell, Justin Gardner, Andrew Quinn, Marc Schulman, Michael van der Galien, Kathy Kattenburg, Jonathan Singer, Paul Silver.