I have a little different view than the Twitterverse and blogosphere on the technological (which seems to be epub3/html5) and legal handcuffs surrounding Apple’s foray into textbook publishing.. As I understand it, Apple’s restrictions are on the sales of iPad-specific books – not PDFs – that are created with the free Apple publishing tool. (I guess I’ll finally have to update...

When I read this letter for the many-eth time in my life, I see MLK’s spiritual discipline, the knowledge of how to go forward in four steps, the leadership, the clear demands, the efforts at negotiation, the spiritual self-examination so one doesnt go off half-cocked caught up in the yelling… and the non violent protest for clear cut goals. When I read Reverend King’s letter from Birmingham...

Some Inconvenient Facts by Michael Reagan Mr. President: Do you really think you are riding high with the rate of unemployment standing at a whopping 8.5 percent? 8.5 percent! Wow!! Perhaps we should take a real good look at the real numbers. The rate of unemployment was 7.8 percent when you took office, and look how much money you have spent since then trying to improve it. Remember that before you took office...

Homecomings for returning combat veterans have never been easy no matter the war, but the flood of Iraq war veterans who will be mustered out in the coming months, as well as a fair number from the Afghan war, pose a huge challenge. This is because gratitude, and Americans certainly are grateful, will not pay the bill. That bill is formidable: * About 800,000 veterans are jobless and many newly discharged veterans...

As readers who have followed my writings — some call them rants — for the past few years know, while I have always opposed and condemned our invasion and occupation of Iraq, I have supported our efforts in Afghanistan to catch and punish the perpetrators of 9/11 and, in some measure, to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban. However, so many of the reports coming out of that country about the government’s...

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,...

The new year brings news of a 16-year-old girl named Heaven Chamberlain, arrested with Occupy the Caucus protesters in Des Moines along with her mother. Heaven, detained once before at an Occupy rally in October, says her rap sheet is like lines on a résumé (“It shows that I’m active with the community and that I care about people’s opinions”) and that she plans to run for president in 2036 after a...

The Lost Story About What The Old Man and the New Baby Used to Mean for Human Renewal of Body, Mind, Spirit, Heart and Soul… at New Year’s We’re led to believe that New Year’s images are about the Old Year going out as a bent over old man… and the New Year toddling in as a grinning infant. That’s what the buycandy buywine buybeer folks would have us believe. But those are degraded images. Long...

by Walter and Rosemary Brasch In January 2009, with a new president about to be inaugurated, we wrote a column about the stories we preferred not having to write, but knew we would. Three years later, we are still writing about those problems; three years from now, we’ll still be writing about them. We had wanted the U.S. Department of the Interior to stop the government-approved slaughter of wild horses...

The accessibility and efficacy of a college education ain’t what it used to be. Glenn Reynolds, aka, Instapundit, (who is a law professor) offers a video that looks at the issue:

Our Copy Editor, Holly Robinson, forwarded me an announcement for an upcoming (tomorrow!) documentary on the National Geographic Channel. Although I am preparing for travel shortly, I would be remiss if I were not to at least — using the text of the announcement — make our readers aware of what promises to be an astounding, eye-opening program about our American Jewish G.I.s who were held by the...

Hazing fatality Robert Champion Now here’s yet another example of the triple anguish of hazing — a social rite of passage for some groups that has ended in death or permanent damage by those seeking to get into the group or forced to endure what in reality is a kind of exercise in group sadism: the death of a Florida drum major has been ruled a homicide: The drum major, Robert Champion, died of “hemorrhagic...

A missing chapter in the history of U.S. military aviation On the eve of this most recent Veterans Day, I had the privilege of accompanying World War II veteran John Tschirhart to a reception hosted by the Texas Veterans Land Board at the Capitol Visitors Center, in Austin, Texas. Tschirhart, a B-17 bombardier with 35 bombing missions over Nazi occupied Europe under his belt, is now 91 and every time I hear...

Christopher Hitchens seemed to some to have been born in a bad mood or under a bad moon on the right. He was, I think, more so a man who despised –as in George Orwell’s book, 1984 too, that there would ever be “The Party” run by the Big Brothers of the world, that would tell men and women what to think, when to think it and when to unthink it, or else. Christopher thereby took out after...

About a week ago, a “Get a Life” post by Joe Gandelman discussing a bovine question by a reporter on a defense authorization bill that included a provision which repeals the military law on sodomy and the military ban on sex with animals, or bestiality, quickly (de)generated some heated comments on the issue. One person insisted that sodomy and other bizarre deviant sex acts should be illegal and was appalled...

Saudi officials have executed a woman for practicing witchcraft. According to this post it seems that they have a system for finding witches.

by WALTER BRASCH Although more than one million Pennsylvanians are members of labor unions, and the state has a long history of worker exploitation and union activism, neither of the two largest university systems has a labor representative on its governing board. The only labor representative on the Board of Governors of the State System of Higher Education (SSHE) in its 28 year history was Julius Uehlein,...

All the most media exposed candidates for GOP POTUS are over age 50, some like Newt, only a couple years shy of 70 years of age. Only 11 out of 44 Presidents have been under age 50, tilted strongly toward the aging and the elderly. There’s a saying that old dogs in fading power try to diminish and hold power away from the strongest of the dogs… which are not the elderly, rather the young who are...

by WALTER BRASCH The Penn State Board of Trustees may have several times violated state law for its failure to publicly announce meetings and how it handled the firing of Coach Joe Paterno. However, these violations may be the least of the Board’s worries, as it scrambles to reduce fall-out from the scandal that began with revelations that an assistant football coach may be a serial child molester, and that...

CLEARFIELD, Pa. — Here’s one more disturbing story related to the shocking Penn State child sexual abuse case: Victim #1, whose allegations about being molested by Jerry Sandusky led to legendary football coach and alleged enabler Joe Paterno’s firing, has left his high school after being bullied by classmates due to his role in Paterno’s dismissal. During the past 21 years when I reported from and...