IN LAST WEEK’S COLUMN, I mentioned the dire situation faced by a significant fraction of older Americans, and quoted a speech made by Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor: “There is a $6.6 trillion gap between what Americans under 65 are currently saving and what they will need to maintain their current standard of living […]

IT IS WITH SOME RELUCTANCE THAT I DROP BACK — or move forward — to that issue that invites such vituperation whenever I address some of its ramifications. I write, of course, of global warming, which remains, I believe, very likely the most crucial environmental issue we have ever faced. Research on this problem continues […]

OK, TIME OUT FROM THE PRESSING ISSUES OF THE DAY. Let’s just take a little break from thinking about railroad tankers, air pollution and climate change. We can leave dysfunctional two-party politics, health care, the NSA and the tea party to someone else for a few minutes. We can always come back to them. Today […]

THOSE WHO MAKE A CAREER OF SERVING OUR NATION in the armed forces know that they are earning a nice retirement as they do so. Men and women who serve 20 years can retire with half the rate of pay they were earning at the point they retired, for life — and if active-duty people […]

TODAY WE BEGIN A BRIEF TOUR of the territory of the tea party, of its origins and angels, its philosophical depths and the sweep of its broad analyses of the issues of our day. It becomes clear, by the way, that in any survey of the role of the Koch brothers in guidance of the […]

AND HOW HARD IS IT? If you think of it in terms of the biblical myth of Satan, or the casting down of a literary Lucifer, you are lost in “metaphysics,” which is imaginary narrative of a drama taking place in the Never-Never Land of a supernatural “Other World” along with or without dragons and […]

IN LAST WEEK’S COLUMN, I asked what it would take to comprehensively address the problems of Richmond, the city I lived in until age 14. I promised that I would discuss specific ideas in this week’s column, but before I get to those, I should review some general characteristics that I view as structurally critical […]

SPECIAL NOTE FOR ALL READERS: a brief summary of right wing reality. To safely set sail on the stormy seas of the currently hyperactive right, one must remember the following: (1) The only legitimate function of government is maintenance of a military; all else is crippling regulation, corruption and waste; (2) People who choose to […]

IT IS EASY TO FORGET ABOUT THE PROBLEMS of the wider world in a place like Benicia. Our streets are safe to walk at any hour, and while Benicia has its share of people who have been affected by the economic crisis of the last five years, I think it is fair to describe our […]

ON RARE OCCASIONS MEMBERS OF THE FAR LEFT permit a glimpse, as dark as it may be, into the inner workings of their minds. As radical Israeli professor Ilon Pappe told Le Soir, “The struggle is about ideology, not about facts. Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we […]