Prostitution in the old Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628-92), which then ran north into southern Maine and included the seaside town of Kennebunk (“So Close, Yet Worlds Away”), was a hanging offense. Times have changed however. And so on Friday a state judge in Portland accepted a plea deal from alleged Zumba dance madam Alexis Wright [...]
“Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It’s time to start thinking.” – Ernest Rutherford, British explorer – quoted sometime after 1910 Political analysts unaffiliated with The Onion suggested Monday that Silvio Berlusconi and upstart challenger Beppe Grillo may have enough votes between them to form a new, coalition government in Italy. If this [...]
As soon as MSNBC called Ohio for Obama last night, I couldn’t wait to switch over to Fox, worried about how those poor little troupers were bearing up. It was a surreal and revealing experience. The coverage appeared comparatively straight up at first; Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier were in states of robotic catatonia, like [...]
I don’t know what it is that makes Rick Santorum so uniquely repulsive, but the following quote from today’s Republican debate might be part of it: When asked what he would do if one of his sons revealed he were gay, Santorum replied, “I would love him as much as I did the second before [...]
When I walked into the Bureau of Development Services, finding it packed as usual, I filled out my form to place in the first of five boxes, and settled in for a long wait. The plans I was submitting were for an extensive remodel, a rebuild, really, of a house that, had it not been [...]
The jaw-dropping lack of accountability prevalent among our elites, no matter how enormous and damaging their quite public failures, has led seemingly reasonable people who ought to know better to, virtually en masse, unintentionally embrace the ludicrous farce that in my family we call the Gravy Boat Theory. Only with them, it’s a lot less [...]
Now, I’ve read some dumb things in my life at the Atlantic (especially since Megan McArdle came along), but this is ridiculous. Wendy Kaminer, an “author, lawyer, and civil libertarian,” which in plain English means “wingnut welfare queen,” leapt into the fray with one of the silliest “slippery slope” arguments against OWS I’ve ever heard, [...]
They’re everywhere – these little men. No tendentious description of the phenomenon is required, nor is a detailed and boring historical context necessary, since they (like the poor) “have always been with us.” But the sudden “surge” of poseurs, fakers, demagogues, deadbeats, and crooks stands out right now, as our vaunted world economy teeter-totters, [...]
That didn’t take long. Perennial austerity advocate Robert J. Samuelson over at the WaPoo frets about the poor little feelings of America’s rich, in these troubled times: There are many theories about why inequality has increased, though no consensus: New technologies reward the highly skilled; globalization depresses factory wages; eroded union power does the same; [...]
It seems that war profiteer and Pentagon shill Barry McCaffrey slithered into Little Beirut the other day, to talk about some things near and dear to his heart, like, well, war profits, and their indefinite continuation. The Oregonian’s jaw-droppingly credulous and fawning interview with this flagrant criminal contained some of the most blatantly authoritarian [...]