Columnists

Although negative political ads take a toll, in most elections voters respond to positive messages. 2014 may prove to be an exception to this rule, as Republicans have waged a relentlessly negative campaign. Their strategy is to fire up their base, drag in a few independents, and win based upon voter turnout. Republicans are assuming that most Independents and many Democrats won’t show up because they are turned off by politics. Suppose this strategy works and Republicans control both the Senate and the House of Representatives. What can we expect?

The core Republican message is paradoxical: elect us because we don’t like government. This was Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign pitch: “As President… I will cut marginal tax rates across the board for individuals and corporations... I will repeal burdensome regulations, and prevent the bureaucracy from writing new ones… Instead of growing the federal government, I will shrink it.” Romney’s blanket solution to America’s problems was a reprise of the discredited maxims of Reaganomics: government is the problem; helping the rich get richer will inevitably help everyone else; and markets are inherently self correcting and therefore there’s no need for government regulation – whether the problem is bank fraud or polluted water. Republicans have continued these same themes in 2014. -more-

What’s a crone? I’m referring to the word variously used in the contexts of religion, spirituality, and witches. Ye olde Oxford English Dictionary (OED) informs that ca 1386 Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) first considered crone, and that it is rarely applied to an old man. By 1844, crone was applied contemptuously when used about an old woman. -more-

If you have chronic mental illness, as I do, and if it includes low-level psychosis that persists despite taking plenty of medication, it helps to periodically do cognitive exercises in which you recognize, identify, and dismiss delusions. -more-