ArcaMax

An old political saying notes that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. However, given the proliferation of today's goofball culture wars and fanatical right-wing phobias, that truism should be updated to say: Evil swarms when power-hungry leaders unleash the crazies.

Which brings us to the U.S. ...Read more

I don't usually cover hard-luck sob stories, but this one... well, it is so deeply touching you might have such an emotional response it will make you cry. Or, like me, want to throw up.

It's not about one family hitting the skids, but about some workers who toiled all last year in the caverns of New York City, only to find at year's end that ...Read more

Growing up, I learned a lot of valuable lessons from the example set by my Ol' Texas Daddy: a strong commitment to the Common Good, a healthy work ethic and a lively sense of humor. But there's one thing about him I've rejected: his determination to have a perfect yard of thick, verdant, St. Augustine grass.

Lord, how he worked at it: laying ...Read more

Question: How many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg? Answer: Four -- calling the tail a leg doesn't make it one.

Likewise, calling a small group of partisan lawyers a "supreme" court doesn't make it one. There's nothing supreme about the six-pack of far-right-wing political activists who are presently soiling our people's ...Read more

Excuse me for using explicit language here, but it seems to me that today's most vulgar expression of right-wing extremist dogma is its unhealthy obsession with banning books. It's a political perversion that, ironically, its participants usually rationalize by claiming they are "battling vulgarity."

And, boy, are they hot to trot! Of course, ...Read more

The craziest political word of the year is "woke," as in "Don't be woke!" It's a command barked by far-right-wing fomenters of a hokey culture war and their political toadies.

Their intent is to demonize and shut up schoolteachers, preachers, librarians, historians, musicians, students, websites, business executives and any sensible human who ...Read more

'Tis the season of sugar plums and gift-giving -- including the time that Time magazine hands out its somewhat pompous annual "Person of the Year" award.

My beef with this gift is that it perpetuates the fallacy that social progress comes from some wondrous individual. It diminishes the more-inspiring fact that progress (and even the "greatness...Read more

Dick Tuck, a political prankster who made a satirical run for public office years ago, got less than 10% of the vote. Conceding defeat, he quipped, "The people have spoken, the bastards."

Tuck's jab at voters was in jest, but it exposed an awkward political truth: While people generally have little respect for today's elected officials, many ...Read more

Here's an interesting fact: Dinosaurs dominated Earth for 165 million years -- and they assumed they always would.

Which brings us to... well, us. We bipedal, large-brained, far-ranging, Homo sapiens primates have certainly established our dominance over modern-day Mother Earth. And even though our reign has only lasted about 200,000 years, we ...Read more

It's time to talk turkey!

No, not the Butterball who just announced another bid for office. I'm talking about the real thing, the big bird, 46 million of which we Americans will devour on this Thanksgiving Day.

It was the Aztecs who first domesticated the gallopavo , but leave it to the Spanish explorers to "foul up" the bird's origins...Read more

What hit the Republican Party on Election Day was... well, the Republican Party.

Blow No. 1, of course, was from the party's president and cult boss, former President Donald Trump, who wields his narcissism like a political bludgeon. But then Republicans got an even more damaging gut punch from the party's own Supreme Court majority of six ...Read more

Every election day, media outlets, candidates and political establishments practically shout to us: "Go vote!"

After all, they point out, your vote is sacred; it's your fundamental constitutional right, for God's sake! Well... yes to voting, but most people (including most politicians) would be astonished to learn that America's Constitution ...Read more