From Under the Same Sky, by Joseph Kim, the memoir of life in North Korea I wrote about a couple days ago: I started kindergarten that year and met my first school friends — and my first mean kids, too. In North Korea, when you go to school, you aren’t ranked academically, but by your ability to fight. Literally. I can tell you who was the number-one boy in my first-grade class, and the number seven — and the numbers... Read more
(A guest post by my husband, er, Mike the Actuary) We hear it every day: The American people are fed up with politics; they don’t feel properly represented by politicians. There are many reasons provided to explain this phenomenon. For me, the main issue is that neither party’s agenda lines ups very well with my own personal belief system. More precisely, I feel that the straight line classification, left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican, just doesn’t work... Read more
To begin with: a pet peeve. Many years ago, I read a book called A Mother’s Ordeal, by Steven Mosher. The topic was forced abortion in China, told from the vantage point of someone who was both perpetrator, eyewitness to babies being aborted just as their mothers went into labor, and victim — having later come to the U.S. with her husband on his student visa, a pregnancy brought demands by the Chinese government to abort, and, ultimately, a successful... Read more
St. Patrick St. Anthony Catholic Church in Grand Haven, Michigan. I sent my husband and kids off to the Musical Fountain because I wanted to think about, and write about, this church (well, and search yelp.com for a good spot for my husband’s birthday dinner; we’ll be trying out J.W.’s, so if anyone’s by chance been there, let us know!). We went to the 10:00 liturgy, and grabbed what seemed to be one of the last available pews a few minutes... Read more
Let’s look at what the candidates have to say! Chris Christie is at chrischristie.com; his tag line is “Telling it like it is.” He has a bit of a platform on entitlements, the economy, education, and foreign policy. John Kasich is at johnkasich.com; not too much in the way of issues except that he touts his budget-balancing and foreign policy experience. Bonus: a summary from PBS. Scott Walker — well, there’s a pattern. Again, the only platform is visible in... Read more
So, look, I’m overdue for a discussion of the current crop of GOP candidates (sorry, progressive readers — Clinton, Sanders, etc., are not an option), after having half-heartedly watched the debate last night, and I still don’t have much to offer as I’m out for most of the day. Some initial thoughts: Who are the credible candidates? Walker — between his mannerisms and his appearance generally, looked more like a SNL parody than the real person. I think he’s also... Read more
I’m seriously considering her. Reports are, she trounced her fellow early-bird-special debaters. (See here.) I know she’s a major underdog, and seriously underfunded, but still — what do you think? Read more
Illinois is, as I’ve said before, in terrible shape as far as state and local government finances are concerned. And Tribune contributor Dennis Byrne (who has plenty of right-wing bona fides) has an answer. A politically-unpopular answer, but an answer nonetheless. Rather than raising taxes yet higher on the general taxpaying population, or cutting social services, such as child care support for the working poor, why not eliminate the largest loophole in our tax code? He writes, of course, of the... Read more
(In which I establish the fact that I’m center-right, not a full-blown rightie, and you can’t classify people along a single continuum.) Remember that bumper sticker from many years ago: “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber”? I never liked this at the time, finding it rather silly, but I’m reminded of that with the current budget battles in Illinois.... Read more
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