this transformation in attitudes towards homosexuality should be studied so that we can understand how and why it took place. Perhaps we can learn some lessons that will enable us to attack some of the other destructive hatreds shared so broadly by human beings. —>> read more –>>

Since the beginning of the 2008 Great Recession we have hoped that the government would return to applying some real rational restraints on the financial system. To be honest, with both political parties deep in the pocket of the industry, this is probably merely wishful thinking. —>> read more –>>

The 1/2% of the Population That Run Our Politics Recently I came on a Ted Talk by Lawrence Lessig, “We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim” filmed in February 2013 (18:19 minutes). This typically brief TED talk provides a compelling argument for why the dominance of big money in —>> read more –>>

We are within days of the anniversary of the first revelations from Edward Snowden’s archive of NSA documents. The drum beat of new stories emerging from this trove continues even to this moment. ((NSA Collecting Millions of Faces from Web Images http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-millions-of-faces-from-web-images.html accessed 06012014)) So, Glenn Greenwald’s book, No Place To —>> read more –>>

Recently I stopped at the US Marine Corp War Memorial in Washington DC. Walking around the base with its lengthy list of Marine engagements since 1775, now a double row on several sides, I thought, “How many of these can faithfully be considered to be in defence of the homeland? —>> read more –>>

We should demand that our financial markets serve their findamental purposes – connect investors with those who can deploy those resources to create new products and services and enable the flow of these goods and services. To call holding financial insturments whether stocks, bonds, or other assets for mere seconds investments is to beggar the mind. —>> read more –>>

The government and the press continue to refer to the FISA Court as a judicial review, a third party oversight of the government’s intrusions on our privacy. This misuse of words and concepts needs correction. —>> read more –>>

With the recent revelations of the NSA vacuum cleaner collecting metadata about every aspect of our lives ((We are forced to assume that they are collecting everything, emails, telephone calls, financial transactions, text messages, anything digital which is virtually every aspect of life unless you took to the woods before —>> read more –>>

An article in the NY TImes today reports ((Regulators Examining Early Sales of Financial Data http://nyti.ms/12hDF3t )) that NY Attorney General Schneiderman is pursuing various information providers, Thomson Reuters in the immediate case, for their practices of selling market sensitive information preferntially. Those paying a premium get information several minutes —>> read more –>>

Confronting the ruling powers (government or corporate) over their misdeeds has a long and honored history. Most recently the Occupy movement brought some new approaches and energy if not immediate success to protest. The Free Speech Movement at U. Cal Berkeley in the mid-sixties provides the famous speech by Mario Savio —>> read more –>>