It’s Father’s Day on June 19, a date also celebrated by Americans of African descent for that day in 1865 when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached their ancestors enslaved in Texas. Juneteenth, as it’s called, is a kind of Independence Day or Freedom Day for anyone paying attention. The Emancipation Proclamation, as we should all remember, was issued January 1, 1863, virtually two and a half years earlier, but who’s counting? Certainly not the white slaveholders in the South,
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Unlike my previous books, I wrote Political Straight Talk: A Prescription for Healing Our Broken System of Government with a coauthor, Kathryn Robyn. It is the last of a trilogy of political books, each of which stands on its own. Before I talk about why we are both excited about our current book, I’d like to tell you a little about the earlier books so you’ll get a better idea why I needed to write Political Straight Talk in the first place.
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I wrote the psychologically based Political Straight Talk: A Prescription for Healing Our Broken System of Government with Kathryn L. Robyn. Kathryn’s editorial contributions to the book’s content were invaluable, not just for her writing skills, but the intellectual properties of the book were greatly enhanced by her input as well.
Normally, a book of this nature ends up being an arduous task, fact checking, resource double-checking, structuring and restructuring, and revising and revising … and revising.
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Regardless who we are or what we’re about, introspection or reflection is very important in each of our lives. It’s important because many of the thoughts that reside in our unconscious may represent bits and pieces of potentially significant unfinished business. Through introspection we can determine more clearly why we think as we do and what may eventually become significant in providing clarity and possibly truth or falsity in our ruminations. Since many of our thoughts are initiated in our unconscious,
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On July 15, 2014, Bill Chappell writing for WLRN, NPR website, wlrn.org, wrote a blog entitled: Israel Resumes Airstrikes On Gaza, As Cease-Fire Chance Slips Away.
Chappell reports: “After Hamas rejected a proposed cease-fire that would have ended eight days of fighting, Israel has resumed its airstrikes on Gaza.
“The development comes after Israel had agreed to an Egyptian-brokered deal to stop hostilities. But leaders of Hamas didn’t back the plan,
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If you’ll recall, in my last blog I mentioned I was going to give a specific recommendation as to what we might do to put some “teeth” into the current request that has been made by Egypt to terminate hostilities currently existing between Israel and Hamas.
In order to understand my recommendation we must review what has happened since Egypt urged Israel and Hamas to immediately cease firing at one another.
As you’ll recall, on July 15,
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Though our government was formed using democratic principles, today, it’s run by the rich and powerful, not by the “common man,” as intended by our Founding Fathers. That’s because over the years the political parties have high jacked our political system and allowed the wealthy and powerful to seek high office and win; this all being done by requiring more and more monies to run for national political office, whether it be for a seat in Congress or becoming president of the United States.
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Writing for Ehrhardt/Associated Press, on June 11, 2014, Molly Ball, a staff writer covering national politics at The Atlantic, wrote a blog entitled Why Eric Cantor Lost and Lindsey Graham Won.
Ball explained why House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost to “a little-known tea party challenger,” David Brat. In explaining why Cantor lost, Ball compared and contrasted the issues Graham ran on, to how Cantor handled his campaign.
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On my last blog, as promised, I was going to take this time to respond to the Op/Ed writer for the Denver Post, Steve Lipsher’s, excellent article entitled Patriots or scoundrels?, which was written On June 30, 2013.
What Lipsher’s Op/Ed piece reveals is how prevalent politically tinged catchy phrases, simple minded and half-baked solutions are made in an effort to imply that what’s said captures the essence of what needs to be done to get our country back on the “right” track again.
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On June 30, 2013, Steve Lipsher, Op/Ed writer for the Denver Post, wrote an article entitled Patriots or scoundrels?
Lipsher begins his article by saying, “This is the week to wave Old Glory and sing the national anthem proudly as we celebrate Independence Day.”
What Lipsher objects to is the way “those among us who tend to “display” their “red, white and blue fervor the rest of the year.” They do this by overtly demonstrating their nationalistic zeal by provocatively and ostentatiously questioning the patriotism of those who disagree with those who express any kind of criticism toward our beloved nation whatsoever,
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