“That filthy little atheist,” as Thomas Paine was called by Theodore Roosevelt, has few monuments dedicated to his memory. Building a bronze and marble monument to Paine will never revive the republic, but his words still carry an electric current of freedom. His intellectual and political energy is always available for rediscovery.
For the holiday weekend, the “Left, Right & Center” squad takes a good, hard look at the state of the economy: How did we get here? Who’s to blame? Can it be fixed? Argument, and even entertainment, ensues as Robert Scheer, Arianna Huffington, Matt Miller and Tony Blankley do their best to make sense of it all.
In this video footage released by CNN on Friday, protesters en route to a rally in support of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya find their travels cut short when a troop of soldiers, apparently representing the same military force that ousted Zelaya last Sunday and replaced him with Roberto Micheletti, move in and shoot out their bus tires.
Number 44 has been spotted in Orlando, in the form of an animatronic addition to Walt Disney World’s Hall of Presidents. And it speaks with the president’s actual voice. It’s as creepy as it is amazing, and easily worth a quick look.
Stephen Colbert gives us his take on some of the latest Supreme Court rulings: White firefighters were vindicated from long, nonexistent oppression; dumping toxic gold waste into lakes rules; and ibuprofen-smuggling teenage girls need to be kept in check. Watch this clip from last night’s “Colbert Report.”
Just how important is a baseball team’s manager to how well a team performs? A new book by one of baseball’s giants attempts an answer. You be the judge.
So, Time and Newsweek have had to reinvent themselves in the face of flagging circulation numbers and built-in relevance issues (i.e., they were created at a time when there were too many newspapers, crazy as that sounds now), but as The Atlantic’s Michael Hirschorn notes, there’s one weekly news digest that’s going strong while others falter.
The renowned German choreographer Pina Bausch has died. The death of the artist, a revolutionary figure in dance, comes as a great loss to both the world of dance and the international arts community. “Pina Bausch continually pushed the boundaries of what we call dance,” said John Neumeier, director of the Hamburg Ballet. “I simply cannot imagine a successor. ... ”
A program at the New England Aquarium is aimed at inspiring obese children to get up and exercise by watching seals stretch, jump and swim. It’s hoped that the seals’ athleticism will move kids to get up and “you know ... run,” as one official put it.
Getting a grip on the economic catastrophe that rocked the country during the fall of 2008 is no easy feat, what with so many players, back-room deals, bills, upswings and meltdowns to consider. Updated
Since President Barack Obama in his recent Cairo speech made a tut-tutting remark about countries that restricted wearing religious garb in school, the controversy over the Muslim burqa has resumed in Europe.
As a circumcised and sexually fulfilled African woman who has been lectured for years by Western NGOs about the moral implications of my genitalia, you can imagine my surprise learning about the the wind of labiaplasties and genital rejuvenations currently sweeping across Europe and America.
Bernard Madoff should be exhibit A in why the dark world of totally unregulated private money managers and hedge funds should be opened to the light of systematic government supervision. Instead, he is being treated as an aberrant menace.
The senators who now claim we cannot afford to spend a trillion dollars to make long overdue changes in health care know exactly what that amount can buy. They know because they have spent it, year after year, on military misadventures and subsidies to big banks and corporations.
The decline in contraceptive use may cheer those who have promoted faith-inspired school curricula, but now we have sad and clear evidence that political foolishness among adults is leading to foolish and harmful behavior among kids.
That some highly vulnerable Democrats in the House were willing to face tens of thousands of dollars worth of Republican attack ads as the price of supporting a bill to curb global warming is the untold story of what, so far, is the year’s most dramatic legislative showdown.
As a society, and as individuals, we are woefully unprepared for aging, even when it’s our parents. About 34 million Americans provide at least some of the care for frail, aging family members, and yet we don’t see it as a normal, predictable part of the life cycle.
The first coup d’etat in Central America in more than a quarter-century occurred last Sunday in Honduras. It was led by a graduate of the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, a military facility that has trained some of Latin America’s worst torturers, murderers and human rights abusers.
The Supreme Court of Honduras, defying an order of the Organization of American States, is standing by its decision to oust former President Manuel Zelaya. The court repeated its earlier position after a two-hour meeting with OAS head Miguel Insulza on Friday. And now for the international backlash.
At the end of this month, Sarah Palin will no longer be Alaska’s governor. The Thrilla from Wasilla made her announcement on Friday, sparking speculation that she may be preparing to run for president in 2012—or that she was compelled to resign for less opportune reasons. Updated
The immigration raids of the Bush years that have carried over into the Obama administration may be changing. The era of federal agents busting into shops and rounding up undocumented workers for deportation is being replaced by a new effort to use fines and civil sanctions, making employers responsible, rather than the workers themselves.
It was the British! According to the Iranian government, it wasn’t the corrupt election or even general resentment toward a heavy-handed state that led to the massive postelection protests in Iran. Instead the regime has detained staffers from the British Embassy in Tehran, and reportedly will put them on trial on charges of inciting protests against the government.
Not only are the Freemasons a bit weird, some are also a bit racist. The admittance of Victor Marshall, a 26-year-old African American, to a chapter in Atlanta last year caused many Georgian Freemasons to seek to revoke the charter of Marshall’s chapter, sparking a legal battle over equality in this new “post-racial” world.
Former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney is being held in a detention center in Ramle, Israel, after venturing out to sea with about 20 other activists to provide aid to Gazans as part of the “Free Gaza Movement.” The ship Spirit of Humanity was intercepted by the Israeli navy before the group could reach its destination. McKinney will be sent back to the U.S. soon, the American Embassy said.
‘Left, Right & Center’: Econorama
