The Republican Dilemma with Immigration

Immigration policy has the Republican Party in a stranglehold from which there may be no escape, but let's call this what it really is, because the immigration debate is really a debate about citizenship, not immigration.

Just as anti-abortionists branded t… Read full post »

I see them from time to time as I go about my errands, very old men, usually thin, usually frail, who move ghost-like through the world.

You see these people all over South Florida  because they moved here in their sixties and seventies to enjoy the warmth, and because most… Read full post »

Disclaimer:  I used to manage a precious metals trading firm, so I know something about the metal trade, but I am out of that business for a year now and my information might be somewhat suspect.

That said, recent suggestions that the President could side-step Republican resistance… Read full post »

 (Note:  Open Salon appears to have ressurected itself from the ashes of inoperability. I am following Koshersaalam's lead and posting both here and on Our Salon for the time being.)

Once again, the Dunderheads in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives are creating a wholly fi… Read full post »

Keep the Community, Ditch the Site

Open Salon is a community that uses the OS website to stay in touch with a core group of people who enjoy writing and discussing all kinds of topics. We, the writers, are the community; Open Salon is only a platform.… Read full post »

During the first debate between himself and President Obama, former Massachusetts Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney said that he would not enact any tax cut that would add to the deficit.

In an October 4th article, Bloomberg/Businessweek Economics Editor Peter Coy pointed o… Read full post »

Long distance diagnosis is frowned upon because the treatment professional really needs to see the client on a regular basis over a significant period of time in order to develop a supportable diagnosis. (Okay, in the real world, yes, counselors and therapists make snap judgments and those snap judgm… Read full post »

Sometimes, the best way to understand the son is to study the father.

During the past few days, we have all had ringside seats at the very public self-destruction of Republican presidential candidate Mutt Romney.

Everyone knows what he did, because we saw it, and how he… Read full post »

I see gods all around me
With every breath I take
I inhale one god and exhale another

Wherever my glance falls
I see god there; in each reflection
god sees me...but there's no one there

God is the instinct for the miraculous
God is the desire for source… Read full post »

Metaphors fail me.

Today, in an new campaign ad, Mitt Romney has told the American people that he is going to create 12 million jobs of the next four years.

The all-time champion job creator, Bill Clinton, saw 19.5 million jobs created during his tenure,  or 2.43 million jobs per year.… Read full post »

No one can adequately answer the question of "What is an American?" because the answers vary on the basis of personal prejudice.  We should, however, be able to definitively state "Who is an American," but it turns out that it's not as simple as it seems.

Who, really, is… Read full post »

(This article began as a rebuttal to a comment on Chauncy DeVega's most recent post.  Go read it and then come back here.)

http://open.salon.com/blog/chauncey_devega/2012/08/22/yes_biden_can_talk_to_blacks_in_ways_that_the_gop_cannot

Joe Biden has been accused of explicit race-baiting on the bas… Read full post »

Hey, my name is Sage Merlin so if anyone is going to make predictions around here, it's going to be me, no matter how dumb they may be.

But AOL occasionally lays a big one, and today's "7 Products, Concepts and Ideas That Won't Exist by 2025"  from The Motley… Read full post »

This is going to be short, but it's not going to be sweet.

Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate is nothing less than an across the board endorsement of Ryan's radical budget proposal and, in my opinion, constitutes an outright declaration of war against the American people.… Read full post »

This is going to be short, but it's not going to be sweet.

Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate is nothing less than an across the board endorsement of Ryan's radical budget proposal and, in my opinion, constitutes an outright declaration of war against the American people.… Read full post »

There's a fine line between employment status and beneficiary status.

Mitt Romney claims that he ended his tenure at Bain in 1999, but admits that he had taken a three year leave of absence in order to salvage the 2002 Olympics while simultaneously insisting that his tenure at Bain ended… Read full post »

This is an experiment.  

 First of all, I am trying to cut down the number of words I throw out there, on the grounds that  people just don't want to read long stuff, myself included.

 Both political parties have been lying through their teeth about the impact of tax cuts on… Read full post »

I received a phone call this morning from Fred Hallman, who I haven't spoken to for a long time.

 Fred called me to remind me of his attempt to provide a landing area for OS orphans, a site called opensaloon.org.  (As far as I know, I was  one of three people… Read full post »

Over the past 72 hours, we've learned a lot about Salon.Com that we didn't know before, as an ad hoc committee of knowledgeable OS members has delved deeply into the publicly available information about Salon's financial condition.  (Much of this dialogue has been going on Orphans of Open Salon… Read full post »

Let's Take Over Open Salon....No, Really: Let's Buy Open Salon

I have made this proposal before, but it was never taken seriously. I would like to put together a group of people to buy Open Salon from Salon and go into business for ourselves. There are talented people who are invested… Read full post »

 (I don't write movie reviews...but this film was so bad I felt it necessary to warn you.) 

"Prometheus," which opened to wide acclaim from both critics and audiences, is an absolutely terrible film, but it represents a summation of Ridley Scott's  career by revisiting the same themes… Read full post »

So, there he was, just standing there, managing at 71 to look like the same unwashed phenomenon he was at 19, a lifelong vagabond in an antique frock coat and dark glasses, an older, weather-beaten, dried out, dessicated version of himself, looking somewhat confused to be sharing  a dais with th… Read full post »

In 2006, Republican Party strategist Kevin Phillips - the architect of Ronald Reagan's Southern Strategy - wrote a book, "American Theocracy," that accurately predicted the deeply damaging  impact of the Republican party's obsessions with oil, religion and debt upon the body politic of the natio… Read full post »

If I had bought in before
I would have lost more
I waited for the call to come
That never came at all
The charge laid against us
That we did not manage well
Belies the existential fact
That we do not manage circumstances
Circumstances manage us.

In the chutzpah of our hubris
We think ourselves players on the… Read full post »

This comes under the heading of, "Be Careful What You Wish For....."

On AOL right now, Bernie Meyerson is predicting five major changes that are going to affect the world over the next five years, and he really thinks they are all good things when, of course, they are not.… Read full post »