Patriots, take heart, there are still a few out there who put principle and freedom ahead of surrender to the monolithic state. Consider the following from TPM DC, “Red States Hatch Plans To Block Obamacare Even If Dems Take Over,” by Dylan Scott, April 22: “Republicans are taking no chances when it comes to Obamacare’s […]
Jerome Page: Happy Easter!
TO MY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES, to liberals, progressives, conservatives, right wing, left wing, centrists — to decline-to-statists — to all of Benicia, this lovely town we share: Happy Easter! Today is clearly a day for removing the barriers, junking the labels and recriminations and rejoicing together. The excited children are surely uninterested in politics — […]
Jerome Page: The perils of reality denied
FIRST, A (PARTIAL!) PAUSE FROM THE UNENDING AND UNENVIABLE TASK of responding to those folks who feel that denying reality (climate change) often enough and cleverly or vehemently enough will release us all from the heavy burdens of that future reality. I want to acknowledge a debt (of reader pleasure) to two outstanding columnists, Carolyn […]
Jerome Page: Science versus the corporate world
FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW I HAVE BEEN ENDEAVORING to make my pitch for sanity in our handling of the issues related to global warming. I have a huge stockpile of pieces, many hundreds, dominated by the opinions and the research — much of that the very basic research of the most qualified climate scientists in […]
Jerome Page: Warming? Cooling? Iced tea or blankets?
I OPEN THIS COLUMN WITH A DRAMATIC BREAKING DEVELOPMENT in the debate over climate change, one that has brought joy to Wall Street and every oil, gas and coal conglomerate in the land. The hyping of a so-called 15-year “pause” in global warming is the biggest story in energy industry circles, carried expansively in all […]
Jerome Page: The perils of a welfare state
TIME, I THINK, FOR A SCARE STORY TO LIVEN UP THE PROCEEDINGS. Imagine what it would mean if we were to reexamine our corporate assumptions about prerogatives, priorities and worker pay. Not that it’s going to happen, just imagine. There are two trend lines that clarify a great deal about the nature of our society, […]
Jerome Page: On fracking, chapter two
SINCE OPENING THE SUBJECT OF FRACKING THREE WEEKS AGO, I have found myself buried in a literature on the subject simultaneously huge and profoundly dispiriting. To begin to grasp the enormity of the problems and dangers involved in the explosive growth of fracking as one of the central components of America’s energy development present and […]
Jerome Page: On the heartbreak of Rex and Dick
FIRST TODAY, I BRING YOU THE HEARTRENDING STORY of a man who has labored all his life to achieve his heart’s desire, a lovely home in Denton, Texas, a Dallas suburb, only to learn it was facing the desecration of a fracking water tower in the neighborhood. (For water supply, not actual fracking.) It is […]
Jerome Page: On the thrills of trashing climate science
FEW ISSUES HAVE SO ENGAGED THE SOUND AND FURY of the Republican Party, as representated by party and congressional leadership, as the notion of climate change or global warming being advanced by liberal “hoaxers.” Of these Republican statesmen, none so captures the zeitgeist of the current GOP grasp of atmospheric realities as the senator from […]
Jerome Page: Savaging the productive!
TODAY I BRING YOU A SOUL-RENDING TALE of unbelievable oppression in our dear land — a story that will tear at your heartstrings. Perhaps you are one of those who thought the rich a favored minority, protected against the onslaughts of fate and fortune. But hear now the anguish of several of these, your beleaguered […]