Before the Big Bust happens, here are a few cautionary words for the hoi polloi:

One of the reasons for the existence of the stock market is to provide a vehicle for the liquidity of investments by investors in corporations.

But another reason for the existence of the stock market...

There are two ideologies in American politics and they can be stated succinctly:

Conservative ideology: The business of America is business.

Liberal ideology: The business of America is social justice.

In America, sometimes the two ideologies are compatible. More often the two ideologies are in conflict.

An important corollary is...

The most important effect of classic nerve gas is the blocking of excitation of muscle cells by nerve cells. The consequence is almost immediate and devastating: convulsions and death by asphyxiation as neural control is lost over respiratory muscles.

One of the major arguments used by the gun lobby against...

So now children in Connecticut are dead and dying because we are too chicken to get guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.

Too chicken or too crazy: Apparently too many people would rather kiss guns than kiss other people.

Yesterday Colorado, today Connecticut, tomorrow...

It's unfortunate when the supposed "newspaper of record," The New York Times, presents the public with errors of interpretation and fact in a special section of the newspaper devoted to science: the so-called Science Times. The problem is that the section is touted by the newspaper as an educational device...

The pitch of conservative hacks is well articulated by the New York Times columnist David Brooks: Life and society are complicated, therefore it's best when making changes to go slow.

A half step forward from the 19th century's Alexander Pope, who told his time that "Whatever is, is right"--meaning no...

In the midst of our current political circus, there are still serious issues that need discussion, especially since the public is constantly bombarded with shallow thinking by right wing conservatives.

In today's New York Times, conservative columnist David Brooks writes a column extolling the importance of capitalist creative entrepreneurship in...

What we have in America is a poor country living inside a rich country, and our tragedy is the people of the rich country pleasure themselves by acting as if the people of the poor country don't exist. It's understandable, since if they recognize the existence of the poor country...

Start a debate about publishing business practices and soon blowhards are in the square with bullhorns. Reality? Forget reality. Everyone has an axe to grind, no matter how truth is trampled.

Here are some truths about the current brouhaha concerning the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Big Six publishers...

The term "propaganda" is defined as information spread for the purpose of promoting some cause.

The two main forms of political propaganda in America are currently "liberal" propaganda and "conservative" propaganda.

But they are not cut of the same cloth, really not.

Liberal propaganda generally serves the purpose of caring...

Let's have a little story: Three characters are standing on a street corner somewhere in Brooklyn. The tall blonde woman with glasses is a quantum physicist named Mary. Beside her stands a short fellow named Steve who's a social philosopher. And facing them on the other side of his pushcart...

On the front page of the New York Times today, there begins a long article about the most current attempt by print publishers and editors to hold onto their turf. And the attempt? Elaborate book covers. A dramatic shift from a supposed emphasis on content to an emphasis on packaging.

Six years ago, on December 20, 2005, a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that the counterargument to Darwinian evolution called "Intelligent Design" was not science and the teaching of it as science must be barred in Pennsylvania public schools. We don't hear much about Intelligent Design anymore, at least not in...

One of the great tragedies of American education is its control by local school boards. Yes, I know, the original idea was to prevent indoctrination by a central government authority. But really, folks, it works only if the school boards are themselves educated and careful about their own biases. It...

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, classic Alka-Seltzer, which among other things contained both anti-acid and aspirin, was offered to the public as a cure-all not only for indigestion, headache, and heartburn, but also for the blahs. Alka-Seltzer sold by the ton in America's great blah decade -- people...

One of our current amusements is how so many media pundits on TV and in print are befuddled by the Occupy Wall Street movement. They say they don't understand it. "What do these people want?" At first the pundits were ordered to kill the movement by ignoring it. Now the...

Nothing looks good. It seems obvious that Republican obstructionism is designed only to get a Republican into the White House -- at any cost to the country -- in the coming presidential election. The major Republican goals are to avoid raising taxes, particularly taxes on the very wealthy, and to...

New York City seems to be in the midst of some difficulty, a convulsion that may ultimately change the local political scene. The management, of course, is Mayor Bloomberg and police chief Ray Kelly. The musical Occupy Wall Street will open soon on Broadway. But for those Have-Nots who can't...

One of the great jokes of modern America is so-called "libertarianism" -- an ill-defined "ism" with a multitude of meanings in a spectrum of attitudes about government intrusion.

At one extreme, the libertarian is a total anarchist, a believer in no government at all, and a hundred years ago a...

What kills socially useful journalism is an ideological agenda and a stupid hunt for "news" often manufactured at the news desk.

In the New York Times of June 20, 2011, buried in the Arts section (at least in the Midwest edition), you will find a sterling example of one reason...