Category: Politics, Religion & Money

A Democracy Self-Destructs

Photo posted today by Jon Provost on his Facebook page

Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” is no more. “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” should be removed from the Statue of Liberty.

“Basket of deplorables” is an odd turn of phrase, but Hillary was right. So was Obama when he said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Mother Russia Music

I consider Trump’s bromance buddy Putin to be so bad he’s something of a throwback to Stalin. Soviet-era composer Dmitri Shostakovich, after falling out of favor with Stalin, got back in Joseph’s good graces with the fifth symphony. It’s a favorite of mine, so I have that much in common with a brutal dictator. I wonder if Vlad the Invader likes it, too?

Fred Rogers, Communist

I became aware of the John Birch Society almost sixty years ago when, as a child in Norwalk, Connecticut, I saw the conspiracy-obsessed organization participate in a 4th of July parade. There was a Bircher chapter in nearby Bridgeport, as mentioned in this NPR report.


NONE of the crazy assertions made by the John Birch Society came to pass. A rational person would eventually realize they’re on the wrong side of reality, but fanatics aren’t rational.

Missed Management

© DOuG pRATt

There are countless reasons why businesses fail. Some are nobody’s fault. When the pandemic hit, restaurants did everything they could to survive, but many folded. Then there are the management failures. K-Mart wasn’t able to compete against Walmart. Sears was once what Amazon is today.

I will always be more than merely disappointed in my former employer of many years. Senior management’s hubris resulted in a total failure to respond in time to competition from Epic Systems. (No relation to Epic Games, other than they’re both software companies.)

The Federal Trade Commission needs to apply a different standard to its definition of a monopoly where Epic is concerned. A reasonable estimate is that Epic manages 75% of America’s non-military medical records. (Oracle Health, formerly Cerner, has the military systems.)

Epic’s power and influence is finally starting to get some attention…

… from conservative sources…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethjoseph/2024/02/26/epics-antitrust-paradox-who-should-control-the-levers-of-healthcare-innovation/

… as well as from the far left.

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-01-epic-dystopia/