Columnists

THE PUBLIC EYE: The War on Democracy: The Deep State

By Bob Burnett
Friday March 07, 2014 - 01:32:00 PM

Over the course of the past decade, the doyens of the left, Peter Dale Scott and Noam Chomsky, began to use the term “deep state” to refer to the relatively small number of Washington and Wall Street player who actually control America. Now former GOP congressional senior staff member, Mike Lofgren, has elaborated the concept. -more-


ECLECTIC RANT: Thoughts on the Ukrainian Crisis

By Ralph E. Stone
Friday March 07, 2014 - 01:29:00 PM

Secretary of State John Kerry recently denounced Russia’s intervention in the Crimea by declaring, “It is not appropriate to invade a country, and at the end of a barrel of a gun dictate what you are trying to achieve. That is not 21st-century, G8, major nation behaviour." Guess which country has a sordid history of invading countries. As the saying goes, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. -more-


ECLECTIC RANT: St. Patrick's Day

By Ralph E. Stone
Friday March 14, 2014 - 12:05:00 PM

On March 17th, the Irish, the more than 70 million world-wide who claim Irish heritage, and the Irish-for-a-day, will be lifting a pint of Guinness, or something stronger, to toast Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. I bet corn beef and cabbage will be on many a menu. And many will be wearin' the green. Why is it celebrated on March 17th? One theory is that is the day St. Patrick died and is now celebrated as his feast day. -more-


ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Chronicle of an Episode

By Jack Bragen
Friday March 07, 2014 - 01:36:00 PM

Most people have, at some point, encountered someone with a mental illness. Perhaps there is an aunt or cousin with mental illness, or the son or daughter of a coworker. Yet, people in general have limited understanding of the life of someone with serious mental illness. It might help you understand if I explain to you what it is like for me to experience a psychotic episode and then recover from it. -more-


SENIOR POWER: Inspiring Change

By Helen Rippier Wheeler, pen136@dslextreme.com
Friday March 07, 2014 - 01:17:00 PM

March is National Women’s History Month. March 8 is International Women's Day. -more-


AGAINST FORGETTING: Why Women's History Month?

By Ruth Rosen
Friday March 07, 2014 - 09:51:00 AM

Everything that explains the world has in fact explained a world that does not exist, a world in which men are at the center of the human enterprise and women are at the margin "helping" them. Such a world does not exist -- never has” (Gerda Lerner )

Aside from the Republican’s relentless War on Women, let me offer you another reason why even one token month is still necessary to America’s political culture.

I’ve just finished reading a book titled The Season of the Witch, written by David Talbot, who founded Salon.com in 1995, the first web magazine in the United States, known for breaking investigative journalistic stories. The book is an evocative political, social and cultural history of San Francisco from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. Since he dealt with every trend and movement, often in overheated prose, I kept waiting—and waiting--for him to describe the sudden explosion of the women’s liberation movement.

Astonishingly, Talbot didn’t even write one paragraph about the women’s movement, which certainly transformed American political and social culture more profoundly than did the two chapters he devotes to the San Francisco 49ers football team. -more-