My latest L.A. Weekly column is now posted and I invite you to read it by clicking here. In it I laud the Los Angeles Times for its Pulitizer-class series this week on the horrors at King/Drew county hospital here in South Central Los Angeles. The facts revealed are stunning in themselves. More striking is [...]

Have a listen to my interview with Christopher Hitchens by pushing the green "play" button. Nation Books has just published his latest collection titled "Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays." Hitchens take his shots at a wide range of targets: from Mel Gibson to Michael Moore. He writes (and speaks to me) about the [...]

Out there in the hallowed private sector — which this administration hails as the most noble level of human enterprise””any CEO whose willful negligence caused the loss of hundreds of lives would be shit-canned. And then he would be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars. In Japan, a corporate leader so irresponsible would commit [...]

The Riggs Bank/Pinochet scandal continues to unfold, dumping dirt everywhere, including a big pile of it on the doorstep of the U.S. government. Now we learn from The New York Times: The former Chilean dictator received multimillion-dollar payments from the governments of several countries, including the United States, during his 25-year tenure as Chile’s ruler [...]

In response to Michael’s Lind’s arguments about the cultural cluelessness of  American progressives (to be found by scrolling down two postings), some commenters objected to what he said about Lenny Bruce: ” I agree with the core of what Lind is saying. I also think Lenny Bruce is the wrong example. Bruce played a specific [...]

Belatedly, let me jeer President  Bush’s appointment of Bernard Kerik as Secretary of Homeland Security.  What an uninspiring choice. Here was a chance for Bush to not only serve the country but also to mend some political fences. If there’s one cabinet post among them all that seems the most non-partisan, it would have to [...]

The Nation magazine has put together a pastiche of opinion from fifteen or so liberals and leftists including Noam Chomsky, Mary Gordon and Eric Foner on what now? (Disclaimer: as a lowly contributing editor to the mag I had no hand in this effort). Still in a paleo-state when it comes to the Web, all [...]

Reading the news, it seems just about time to crack out those 40 year-old Tom Paxton albums and start singing along:"I jumped off the old troop ship,And sank in mud up to my hips.I cussed until the captain called me down.Never mind how hard it’s raining,Think of all the ground we’re gaining,Just don’t take one [...]

My latest column just out from L.A. Weekly plinks away at MoveOn.Org and its activists who still can’t quite come to terms with last month’s decisisve electoral defeat. Please read the entire column. Here’s the tickler: Never mind that George W. Bush won re-election by 4 million votes. Or that Democrats lost in 28 out [...]