As we approach the festive season -- the elongated, enchanting month from Thanksgiving through Christmas to New Years -- my mind has been drifting through various memorable past holidays. Some have been personal -- the last one with my father before he died. But one that stands out for historic reasons was Christmas 1991.
"Why Americans Won't Do Dirty Jobs" is the presumptuous headline on a Bloomberg Businessweek cover. The subject is Alabama's new no-tolerance policy toward illegal immigrants and the people who hire them.
Supercommittee members Sen. Pat Toomey and Rep. Jeb Hensarling are taking flak from some conservatives for proposing a deal including increases in "revenues," and a Washington Post reporter had some fun insinuating that they were backing a tax-rate increase.
Presidents do not have a lot of leisure reading time, so it's unlikely that Barack Obama has had time to flip through the pages of Harper's November issue. And that's probably good news for the president, because here are the first two entries of the famed "Harper's Index" this month:
Princely U.S. government subsidies have made developing wind, solar and other clean energy nearly risk-free to investors -- and that's bad. But the price of this domestically produced power has tumbled, thanks in part to such aid. That helps clean energy compete with the fossil kind, which is definitely good.
The election of Barack Obama, we were told, would bring new respect and friendship for America in the world.
A just released book, "Bowing to Beijing" by Brett M. Decker and William C. Triplett II, will change forever the way you think about China -- even if, like me, you already have the deepest worries about the Chinese threat. As I opened the book, I was expecting to find many useful examples of Chinese military and industrial efforts to get the better of the United States and the West.
Americans typically eat over 1,000 meals a year. But for many, Thanksgiving dinner seems to be the one that, like a magnet, gathers the iron shavings of every food anxiety. Why should that be? You'd think that this feast with family and friends would be accepted for what it is -- an innocent once-a-year gorge. In a country where disciplined eating is sadly lacking, why pile on the one time we traditionally throw caution to the wind?
It irritates members of both groups when I note the similarities of the tea party movement that swept the nation in the 2010 election and the peace movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
At a time when nations that tax, spend, regulate and invest more consistently outstrip the United States in many measures of progress, leading Republicans speak only of smashing government and ending vital programs. In this constantly escalating rhetorical game, it became inevitable that one of them would eventually expose the emptiness of this vainglorious display. And it was unsurprising that the ultimate faker would turn to be Rick Perry.
The "poverty issue" opens a vast highway system of social and economic observations headed in every direction. Some say poverty is a national disgrace. Some say it's the poor people's own fault. Some say the government must end it through bigger subsidies and more services for the poor -- others by reducing that help and instead expanding economic opportunity.
Here's a thought: The GOP presidential primaries may well prove to be inconclusive, with the nominee actually being chosen at the convention in Tampa, Fla., in the fourth week of August next year.
It was odd becoming a personal friend of Andy Rooney so late in his life and so far into my own. I'd seen him on "60 Minutes" for all 33 years, first while sitting on the rug in my parents' house. Through one of Andy's close friends and neighbors, I actually got to know him 10 years ago. To answer the question, "Was Andy really like that?" I say, "Yes, totally."
Herman Cain, beleaguered by charges of sexual harassment, was all over Washington last week -- an odd choice of venue, considering that the Iowa precinct caucuses are now just 58 days away and the New Hampshire primary 65.
But as I learned when I sat next to Cain Friday morning during a long-scheduled taping of Richard Carlson's "Danger Zone" radio program, Cain seemed unfazed.
In conversation before the taping he dismissed the controversy. "No documentation. No witnesses. And I didn't cancel a single event this week" -- although his wife Gloria, accompanying him for the first time, cancelled an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren.
Despite some modest improvements in the jobs picture with the release of today’s Labor Department report, I would guard against any irrational overexuberance that problems with employment or the economy are being solved.
Americans listen when Michael Bloomberg speaks, not only because he is the mayor of New York City, but because he is a self-made billionaire and a smart guy. People think Bloomberg knows a lot about business and investment, which he surely does.
Over the decades, in every fourth year, we have noticed a tendency to close out the presidential nominating contest before the voting has even begun. There is a little of this impatience on display in 2011, too. It is only natural since the campaigns are nearly eternal. "Enough already!" many seem to be shouting.
There really is no need to talk about vice-presidential selection right now, but in recent weeks discussion of the subject has filled pages, airwaves and cyberspace as a number of knowledgeable observers have approached the subject from imaginable (and unimaginable) angles.
A perceived decline in "national greatness" haunts Americans of all political persuasions. Many equate it with the drop in our superpower status. But others ask, "Are the costs of perpetually commanding the high ground worth it?" Money we spend defending the world, others spend building fast trains.
Washington was all a-Twitter (literally) Monday over Politico's story about the sexual harassment charges against Herman Cain -- and about Cain's serial self-contradictions.
