Why do we like First Ladies?

Recently I have noticed that in my social circle (consisting of almost all president Obama supporters), the conversation frequently turns to Michelle Obama. Praising her for her intelligence, looks, grace, poise, and sense of humor seems to be the one thing that people can agree upon and thus avoid the more disagreeable topic of how disappointing her husband has been. [Read more…]

The Catholic Church’s war on women picks up the pace

It is quite extraordinary how the Catholic Church seems to go out if its way to alienate women. Fresh from their assault on nuns (see here and here), the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is now targeting Girl Scouts. Both my daughters were girl scouts and it would be tough to find a more wholesome or inoffensive group. But the old men of the Catholic Church seem to see it as a gateway to evil. [Read more…]

Benefit corporations

One of the problems of capitalism (at least I see it as a problem) is that its only fiduciary duty is to the shareholders. In other words, its business practices have to have the prime purpose of maximizing the returns to its investors, consistent with the existing laws. This makes sense, in a narrow way. After all, the shareholders are the ones who provide the money and in any large public company, they will constitute a varied group that has diverse interests. The only thing that they can be guaranteed to have in common is the desire for a good return on their investments. [Read more…]

Allowing sociopaths and war criminals to gloat

In any just society, former CIA operative Jose Rodriquez would be charged as a war criminal, put on trial, and if convicted, sentenced to a long prison term for carrying out torture and then destroying evidence.

But in our current society, people like him have been granted immunity by the current administration because president Obama conveniently likes to let bygones be bygones and “look forward, not backward” when it comes to prosecuting war crimes. So Rodriquez writes a book boasting about his deeds and goes on national TV to hawk it, facing soft-ball questions from our allegedly hard-hitting intrepid journalists. [Read more…]

More on Obama’s statement on same sex marriage

The fallout from president Obama’s statement yesterday that he was in favor of same sex couples having the same right to marry as any other couple has been interesting to observe.

There have been those who have found reasons to criticize it, saying that it was long overdue, that his emphasis that it was his personal opinion diluted the impact because he did not say that he was going to fight vigorously for it to become law, that he was saying this for political reasons to galvanize his base of supporters, that he was forced to do so by vice president Joe Biden’s statement, even that he was doing this because he needed ‘gay money‘ to counter the loss in Wall Street money that was now going to Mitt Romney. [Read more…]