Time out, you political hacks who think you know everything. It’s time for a brief respite. Bobby Thomson is dead. He was 86. Although not the greatest player by a long shot in his time, Bobby Thomson hit “The Shot Heard Around the World.” His three-run homer for the New York Giants in the bottom of the ninth inning in the third game of the 1951 National League playoff beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4 to...

When you blog, you open yourself up to some pretty intense scrutiny, some sharp criticism, oftentimes some very damning condemnation and, once in a while, to some praise. It comes with the territory and being thin skinned certainly doesn’t help things. But whether thin skinned or thick skinned, I will venture to say that to most bloggers receiving that one nice, complimentary—adulating is even better—comment...

Last November, I wrote about how I went from being a political blogger, to being a political candidate and then an elected official because I won my race. Alan Rosenblatt and I then worked to compile a list of similar cases and found less than two handfuls. A Politico reporter researched and wrote and Politico published, More Bloggers Throwing Hats in the Ring on Wednesday. It’s got some nice overview...

I have not been posting very much lately. It is not because I am out of ideas–none of us ever are. It may be because just about every subject, every issue I may want to address can be politically viewed, misinterpreted and even at a moderate site such as this one, “vigorously” debated and attacked. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t shrink from a healthy, civil debate or from equally vigorously defending...

My wife and daughter think I talk to myself when I sit on the patio and they see my lips move from the kitchen table inside. It’s not true of course. I’m talking to the rabbits. In North Scottsdale, housing is constructed to preserve natural habitat for the wild things that preceded human encroachment. The vast washes that run between houses are home to all manner of wildlife. With a half wall topped...

I’m someone that puts his brain where his mouth is, meaning that I actively try to work to address problems that I talk about. One of these days I’m going to do comprehensive posts about everything I’m involved with from health care to energy to food production to economic modeling, there may be some other stuff I don’t remember now. I’ve been wanting to do so, but until we’ve...

Really not sure what a Mama Grizzly would say about this. Maybe Mama Grizzlies have potty mouths? But to me, it’s about gender neutral punches. Gender. Neutral. If we don’t lead and show how it’s done, we can never be heard to expect that others stop it too. Why? Here’s a collage of how bad it was against Sarah Palin herself: Watch this video – again and again – and see...

In 2004 and again in 2008, Jennifer Lawless (Director, Women & Politics Institute, American University) and Robert Fox published reports that examine why women don’t run for elected position. The first was called Why Don’t Women Run For Office?, and Why Are Women Still Not Running For Office? was the follow up. Both reports eventually were published as books.  While seen as mostly accurate...

A couple of days ago, I applied to become a contributing writer at Suite 101. My application was approved yesterday. Today, I submitted my first article for publication, and it’s up on the site now.

Like Bill and Hillary Clinton, I also got my only child, a daughter, married in 2005. And, boy, I know what I went through!!! I can share with Bill and Hillary the emotional (or whatever) feelings/usual thing one goes through on such an occasion. I congratulate The Week for capturing this moment for me “as the media speculates about Chelsea’s wedding this Saturday, July 31, according to multiple...

If you aren’t old enough to remember Bush v. Gore (serious trivia: for those who’ve followed California’s Prop 8, check out the attorneys in Bush v. Gore and who they represented), don’t worry. The debate it highlighted — should our president be selected by popular vote or the electoral college system — lives on in the efforts of many states, catalogued by National Popular...

I am an old guy and for the life of me cannot understand the vox populi attraction for Lindsay Lohan. I’m not that old and I appreciate the talents of pretty women. Lindsay Lohan is one troubled person. She’s got a police rap sheet longer than all the politicians combined in Washington. Mostly its for drug and alcohol abuse. She also has talent. I saw her in one movie, Georgia Rule with Jane Fonda. Nice...

Peter Galbraith, the former United Nations’ deputy special representative for Afghanistan, raises a pertinent point regarding the White House response to WikiLeaks documents: “The Wikileaks documents, splashed in the Guardian and several other papers, provide useful confirmation of what is readily discerned from public sources: the Afghanistan War is going badly, the Taliban are exceptionally brutal,...

Forgive me right off the bat — that’s both an apology and a plea — but the recent glut of articles and columns about apologies have it all wrong! The media’s focus has been on the symbolism of saying the words “I’m sorry,” as if that single utterance means everything and is the only thing. In today’s soundbite world that clamors to satisfy the hunger of news consumers,...

The world media is in a spin. The Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel have published a huge cache of secret military files from the whistleblowing website Wikileaks, detailing the war in Afghanistan. Readers can folllow the latest reactions to the Afghanistan war logs here at this Guardian blog. The huge cache of classified papers – posted by Wikileaks as the Afghan War Diary – is one of...

Why is it that France and the United States have unifying national holidays to freedom, but Russia does not? According to columnist Anatoliy Bershtein of the opposition newpaper Yezhednevniy Zhurnal, the reason is simple: Russia lacks a historic basis for such an event, and it’s people have no taste for the sacrifices freedom demands. For the Yezhednevniy Zhurnal, Anatoliy Bershtein writes in part: Both...

For those who want depressing news and hard edged political debate, read something else. This is a feel-good story about what’s right and good in America. Jennie Finch has announced that she will retire next month. For those who don’t quite remember the name, Jennie Finch is uber-talented softball pitcher who led the 2004 USA Women’s Softball team to Olympic Gold in Athens, Greece. She pitches now for...

My idea of a hero is not some overpaid professional ballplayer hitting a home run to win the seventh game of the World Series. It is always a someone no one ever heard of. Like Ben Sater. Ben is 19, a resident of the Dallas suburb McKinney who Monday completed his dream of raising $1 million for the children’s hospital that provided free treatment to repair congenital damage to his fingers. The payback began...

Ariel Merari, a retired professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University in Israel, adds yet another interesting dimension to the plethora of research work that exists to study the minds of suicide bombers. Professor Merari says in his latest book that among the suicide bombers he interviewed “none were any more militant than the average Palestinian. For many, the suicide mission was their first involvement...

Maybe I’m twisted, but this post is the funniest damn thing I’ve read in a very long time. [H/t Chris Bodenner @ The Daily Dish]

There is a one-ups-man’s-ship game being played by the more responsible anchors of the three major cable networks. The bait is the same. Each uses a countdown on the number of days some bloke in the news fails to appear on their shows. This copycat format goes like this: Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball issues an ultimatum invitation to any Republican elected politician to say he does not take marching...

Justice Clarence Thomas like his extremist cohorts on the Supreme Court has not shown a lot of empathy for the common man.  But it would appear that empathy makes an appearance when it’s one of their own that is a victim.  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is reportedly “outraged” after security guards at a New Orleans-area hospital were accused of punching and tasing his epileptic...

Some of my co-bloggers here might roll their eyes if I’d indicated in that title that it continues to appear to be true that I’m in fact the only female political blogger who has run for and won elected office (Pepper Pike City Council) just because I emphasize the where are the women thing a lot. I get it, promise. But the truth is, hardly any political bloggers of either gender run for office. We...

From Siena polls comes the most recent ranking of U. S. presidents from best to worst. The rankings are the results of polling 238 presidential scholars, considering personal qualities and accomplishments in varying policy areas. Take a look and see if you agree.

The Ohio Supreme Court handed down a decision today in McFee v. Nursing Care Management of America, Inc. that holds that, “…it’s not gender discrimination for employers to require a minimum tenure for employees to take an extended leave for any purpose, pregnancy included.” (See this Columbus Dispatch blog post.) What’s the problem? Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice...