Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

A Wee Bit of History

Off and on, in 1967, 68, 69 & 70, I worked the San Francisco waterfront as a marine electrician troubleshooter while going to University. Then, there were still the freighters owned by big shipping lines, the cruise lines, and a lot of the old Victory ships coming and going from SF. I worked on all […]

A Curious Form of Sex Addiction

A Curious Form of Sex Addiction, EconoSpeak, Barkley Rosser  The murderer of 8 people recently in the Atlanta area, of whom 6 were Asian American women, mostly (if not completely) Korean American, has claimed that he did not do it out of any anti-Asian prejudice, much less anti-women prejudice, although apparently only one of those […]

51st anniversary of the largest wildcat strike in U.S. labor history

Steve Hutkins: This week marks the 51st anniversary of the largest wildcat strike in U.S. labor history: The Great Postal Strike of 1970 March 18th marks the day fifty-one years ago when postal workers walked off the job in New York City in what soon became the largest wildcat strike in U.S. labor history. Last March […]

Interesting Commentary on a Wednesday

“Letters from an American” Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s column today I find interesting and hopefully AB readers do also. Professor Cox Richardson’s first topic of the day discusses the Justice system and how it is being influenced by political moneyed interests. Her second topic touches on McConnell warning Democrats not to change the filibuster. McConnell’s […]

“How The Humanities Building Went Wrong” Or Does Brutalist Architecture Represent Fascist “Institutionalized Tyranny”?

“How The Humanities Building Went Wrong” Or Does Brutalist Architecture Represent Fascist “Institutionalized Tyranny”?  My freshly arrived Spring 2021 issue of “On Wisconsin,” the alumni magazine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has an article whose title is the first part of the title above in quotation marks.  The later quotation marks phrase appears in the […]

Bloody Sunday

Professor Heather Cox Richardson at Boston College details Bloody Sunday in her “Letters from An American,” how it relates to the SCOTUS decision in 2013, and the signing of an Executive Order by President Joe Biden “to promote voting access and allow all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.” Some of us were around […]

Alabama? A Potential Shift in the Contours of Political Parties

Another big event is on the United States horizon, in Alabama, and its occurrence portends a potential seismic shift in the contours of our political parties. Amazon workers at an in Bessemer, Alabama facility are going to vote on unionization. And of course, Amazon opposes unionization. Amazon has a lot at stake if the Bessemer […]

Two Audio Interviews: Rethinking the Constitution and The New PhD

I thought readers would enjoy the following two interviews. The first is with Mary Anne Franks: The Cult of the Constitution. The discussion is titled: Rethinking the Constitution. She gets into the first and second amendment. What I found thoughtful was her presentation of the Constitution being viewed as a sacred document. Think the Bible […]

Karl Marx/Benjamin Franklin Mashup

Karl Marx/Benjamin Franklin Mashup Capital itself is the moving contradiction, in that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth. Remember that time is money. Hence it diminishes labour time in the necessary form so as to increase […]