In nineteen hundred four and sixty, When staying stoned seemed real nifty, I thought age made one dull and nerdy, And trusted no one over thirty. The years have passed, my views have changed, My valuations rearranged, I now judge young folks shallow, drifty, And trust no one who ain’t reached fifty. Soon from this author: This God-Awful Political Season (In Verse)

In the wake of Mitt Romney’s eight vote win in Iowa, Maureen Dowd offers a column on the volatile relationship between fathers and sons: “American politics,” she writes,”bristles with Oedipal drama:” Sons struggling to live up to fathers. Sons striving to outdo fathers. Sons scheming to avenge fathers. Sons burning to one-up fathers. Sons yearning to impress fathers who vanished...

CODA: Doing some “Googling” on languages and dreams, I was amazed at how many entries there are on the subject, “What language do you dream in?” There’s even a book at Amazon.com titled — you guessed it — “What language do you dream in?” So, given the interest and since it has been more than three years since I wrote about it here, let me try it again,...

I just finished making my New Year’s resolutions. I’m a little late this year because the final games of the regular NFL season were being played over the weekend. I’ve finally completed this important task, however. So here’s my 2012 must-do list: 1. Give up smoking. I make this my first choice every year because I don’t smoke and therefore am sure to actually keep this one. Its...

WASHINGTON – There’s a reason Obama reelect doesn’t have a slogan. All they’ve got is a question: Are you in? Symbolic of this problem is what happened to Elizabeth Warren when her rise was met by Tim Geithner’s foot, and why Ron Suskind’s book Confidence Men made the Administration queasy. It’s seen in Wall Street firms earning more in Pres. Obama’s first years...

Well I’m not sure if this is news or not but it is a funny image.

Although you should never make too many assumptions in Iowa most current polling suggests that the winner in Iowa will be either Romney or Paul with Santorum likely to come in 3rd. My guess is that Romney will come out on top because the latest polls seem to suggest that the undecided are not ideologues but pragmatists wanting the candidate who can win. Given a choice between Romney and Paul I expect those voters...

“If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation.” – The Federalist Papers, Number 15, Alexander Hamilton In a recent dialogue in the New York Times on the need for a centrist third party, I listed ethical conduct as one of the necessary hallmarks of this new party. Many respondents...

No doubt the folks at the Heritage Foundation will pillory Paul Krugman for his column in this morning’s New York Times. Their disrespect for him matches his own disrespect for them. On the subject of the national debt, Krugman writes: Perhaps most obviously, the economic “experts” on whom much of Congress relies have been repeatedly, utterly wrong about the short-run effects of budget deficits. People...

For much of the world, this is New Year’s Eve and is now officially 2012… and just this: My friend Rigoberta Menchu Tum, of the Mayan K’iche tribe, and Nobel peace prize winner, says of 2012, it marks the ending of an era, and beginning of a new 40 year period of an unprecedented time to bring all strength and goodness into the world. Many of us will live and give through some part or all...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! To all TMV readers, writers and contributors and to everyone all over the world, all of us here at TMV wish you the happiest of Happy New Years in 2012. Graphic via shutterstock.com

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Let’s face it. Politics is a brutal game that takes every ounce of the energy for a Presidential wannabe, with incoming political missiles and the threat of sudden political death present at all moments. Throughout American political history, politicians under pressure have cried. Today it was Newt Gingrich’s turn. Early reports suggest women voters in the room were highly sympathetic. But, in the...

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Jon Swift was a satirist without peer in the blogosphere before his untimely death in 2009. Every year’s end since then, blogger Bottachio has carried on Jon’s tradition of posting a round-up of bloggers’ best self-selected work for the year. Click here for the 2011 edition.

I don’t know what caught my attention while browsing the web today. Perhaps it was the similarity to the title of that famous song, “How much is that doggie in the window?” Perhaps it was the similarity to the title I chose for one of my military aviation stories, “How much is that F-35 in the window?” But more likely it was the incongruence in the words in the title of the story itself: “How much...

Here’s our modest annual list looking at 2011 — a list that might help guide us in 2012. Best New National Scene Republican: Former Utah Gov. Jon Hunstman. Some GOPers never forgave him for having served as President Barack Obama’s Ambassador to China, but he offered the kind of thoughtful conservative Republicanism that could have roped in independents. He would have had a better chance running 10 years...

The New Year of 2012, a general election year, will be a year when the fortunes of political parties and politicians will rise and fall; it will be a year of unprecedented social and ideological confrontation; most important, it will be a year when “we the people” once again have the opportunity — the obligation — to make necessary adjustments or corrections to the course of our society,...

As usual, we end a year much the poorer due to many of those who passed — people we knew and loved, and people we read about and felt we knew and loved. Here’s a slideshow about some of the more famous people who left us in 2012.

Republicans Have a Gambling Problem by Tina Dupuy We like risk and reward. The gold rush was as much a motivation to be a pioneer as was the more noted religious freedom. Poker is actually considered a sport. Yes, poker players are athletes according to the U.S. government. It’s the one sport you can train for while chain smoking in a tracksuit. But like every wine connoisseur will think they have nothing...

Randy Schultz, writing for the editorial page of the Palm Beach Post, doesn’t see dissatisfaction with the major parties as a uniter of independent voters. He’s got some interesting observations here about the need for organization — the “volunteers who staff phone banks, stuff envelopes and drive voters to the polls,” the stuff of electoral politics in America. But unity? In my...

Now that we have pulled out of Iraq — on a schedule negotiated by the Bush administration — and as instability and violence are on the increase there — as we feared they would — the very same chickenhawks who got us into this mess are now rearing their heads to blame Obama — as we knew they would. They are now saying the same they would have said if we had pulled out of Iraq six...

Multiple sources are reporting that Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson will not seek re-election to the US Senate in 2012. This certainly is not good news for the Democrats and their effort to retain control but it may not be all bad. Keeping the Nelson seat was going to be hard and now they can likely write the seat off and focus resources elsewhere. But it does increase odds that the narrow Democratic Senate will...

In some countries, when the choices on the ballot aren’t good ones, people can pull the NOTA (None Of The Above) lever. Maybe Americans should have the same option… A NOTA Limerick I once was a politics doter, Today, though, this realm seems remoter; The two parties’ fare? Who cares ’bout that pair? In 2012 I’ll vote NOTA. More at: “This God-Awful Political Season (In Verse)”

2011 saw some world pillars toppling down. Dictators have fallen in the Arab world as people were hoping for a better future. Prime Ministers have fallen in Europe as its currency plunged into crisis. An earthquake and tsunami pummeled Japan, confronting it with the specter of nuclear disaster. But while the Arab Spring revolutions erupted unexpectedly, their results have not been clear cut. Egypt is still...