Spring…a time of growth, or regrowth if you will… From our first footsteps as modern humans, our species has moved forward, stretching our potential as we improved our mortal condition, each new step taking thousands of years before its imprint could be seen. It took humanity about 190,000 years to move from the Stone Age […]

President Bush presented his 2008 budget recently, and the numbers don’t lie- to pay for his massive tax cuts for the wealthy and his ongoing war on whomever he considers a terrorist this week, Bush proposed cuts to programs that actually help the poor, needy, disabled and America’s veterans. How’s that for compassionate conservatism? In […]

First, let me say that the title to this post is imperfect, but it’s the best I could do. Clearly, not all ‘conservatives’ decry the fact that the Earth’s climate is changing, or that it is because of human activity that those changes are occurring. Further, ‘global warming’ is somewhat imprecise, as the climate changes […]

For the last few years, we’ve all heard the clammoring from those who have endeavored to create a national crisis in their faux War on Christmas. For some, it seems that the defense of the Christian holiday is paramount to salvation. To hear them proclaim that the day is under secular assault and in danger […]

Authoritarianism seems to be popular these days, or at least among those twenty-something percent of Americans who think the President is a swell guy. Recently, I had the good fortune to experience a bit of trickle down Deciderism at work right here in my own neighborhood. And then I got to see it smacked down […]

At least, that’s the message many in the storm ravaged communities along the Gulf Coast are getting from their insurance companies as they attempt to rebuild their homes and their lives after last years devastating Hurricane Katrina reduced their hopes and dreams to so much clutter. This AP article, which is appearing in many newspapers […]

(An apology to regular readers of Common Sense. As of late, I have become increasingly occupied with beginning a campaign. That explains the increasing length of time between posts. This post was originally published here in June 2005. But it came back to mind today after I read another similar essay, and it seems to […]

Free speech…it is one of the hallmarks of the American way of life. The ability to freely express oneself without fear of government reprisal is so fundamental that it is enshrined in the first amendment to our national Constitution. Yet despite this protection, there have always been restrictions on how free our speech really is, […]

Thanksgiving is one of our oldest national holidays, and is purely American in its origins. Ostensibly, we are honoring the European settlers who managed to carve out a living in a strange and not altogether hospitable new land. They began this holiday themselves, to rejoice at their good fortune for staying alive against the odds. […]

One of the basic tenets of American society is the right to privacy. Or at least, it used to be. With advances in technology though, it seems as if privacy is a passé idea in an information age where every transaction is digitally stored, every report is saved in bits and bytes, every communication traceable. […]