A Defense of BIG Government?
The Internet on which this wonderful site resides, on which I intend to post this message, exists, at least in some significant part, courtesy of its genesis via research funded through the Defense...
View ArticleColor Me "Victim"
In an "Open Letter" to Michael Skolnik on GlobalGrind (http://globalgrind.com/...), George Zimmerman's brother, Robert, recounts in excruciating detail his family's victimization by those...
View ArticleResolving to talk less, listen more
By which I mean, I do so resolve. I work about three blocks from the White House, in a building that once housed the Washington Times-Herald. In the early 1950s, a recent George Washington University...
View ArticlePost-Traumatic Growth (Part 1?)
I once read how, when Jawaharla Nehru’s father died, three weeks later, a letter arrived wherever he was then living in India. This occurred in 1931, but the letter was dated, February 28, 1926....
View ArticleThere's a BLACK MAN in the WHITE HOUSE
So I posted the link on my Facebook page to the MSNBC post regarding the NRA's macabre ad using President Obama's daughters to further their plan to stimulate paranoia and foment armed revolution and...
View ArticlePost-Traumatic Growth II: Poetic Approaches
Here is John Stuart Mill in his Autobiography, reflecting on an emotional crisis in his early life, between 1826 and 1832:I now began to find meaning in the things, which I had read or heard about the...
View ArticleVeterans, Women and STEM Diversity
Some discussions I've seen and in which I've participated on DailyKos have dealt with girls' and women's experiences related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and...
View ArticleVeteran Women, Minority and Service-Related Disabled Conference
My primary hope in sharing this information and whatever comments that follow is that we (as a nation, whatever that means, and as brothers and sisters sharing life on the planet) continue to remember...
View Articlecourage vs. cowardice paradox and SOTU
Enjoying the many humorous, often sarcastic (rightly so) commentary on Republican response to SOTU speech, as well as the more complimentary assessments of the speech itself. Personally, I realized...
View ArticleA Little Reminder of My (and Your) White Privilege
How do you define yourself? A liberal? Progressive? Activist? Pacifist? Spiritual person? Agnostic? Atheist? Some combination of these, perhaps? Do you define yourself according to your race? I don't...
View ArticleSequestration Circle Jerk Leads to Broken Promises to Military Servicemembers...
According to military.com (and some hot phone calls we just got here at work from military contacts) repubican chickenhawk hypocrisy, democratic conflict-aversion spinelessness and their impacts on...
View ArticleA soldier called from Afghanistan: Does TA suspension reveal...
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know that we have divided In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent To shake all cares and business from our age; (King Lear)...
View ArticleDisability Compensation Backlog Remains VA's Biggest Dilemma
On March 18 and 19, 2013, I attended the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Advisory Committee (VAAC) on Disability Compensation meeting in Washington, DC. My employer could (or would) not support my...
View ArticleGuess What? Conservative "Think-Tank" Knows What Will Save VA: Profit-Motive
As a "nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization," the National Center for Policy Analysis produced a policy paper in December of 2012 that reaffirmed its "nonpartisan" credibility as...
View ArticleVeteran of War, Poet of Peace: Lucien Stryk (1924-2013)
A Chicago Tribune article announcing the poet, Lucien Stryk's, death devotes as much energy to discussing his translations of Japanese Zen poetry as it does to his own poetic works. Consider Stryk's...
View ArticleVA Opposes Bi-Partisan Bill to Increase Assistance to Military Sexual Assault...
A Navy Times article quotes a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) official, David McLenachen, VA's Director of Pension and Fiduciary Service, who represented the agency at the hearing HR 672, or The...
View ArticleTo My "Sister" Veteran, Trina, Wherever She May Be
I think it’s easy to objectify veterans and their experiences, even if I believe that I care about them personally. I do it all the time, and I work with currently serving military folks who are combat...
View ArticleWhy it's better to be alive at the funeral
RIP "Nessie," (1953-2013) friend and fellow-traveler from out of darkness.
View ArticleCatholic Nun, Vietnam Vet & House Painter Found Guilty of "Harming the...
What they carried into their act of civil disobedience might not strike most people as topping a list of tools for "saboteurs":In their backpacks, he [Michael Walli] and the nun carried twine, matches,...
View ArticleHow Did Some of Us Not See Surveillance Overreach Coming?
If it wasn't the Walmart bathroom camera lawsuit in 2009, it should have been something else. After all, Walmart is a corporation, which should be able to do whatever it wishes in its private property...
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