In 2002 Florida voters approved an amendment ordering the state to reduce class size. As with so many such amendments, the state was left to look for a way to provide the teachers and pay them. The story in my home county, Escambia, and in neighboring Santa Rosa county is in today’s Pensacola News-Journal. In…
For years, ever since I first heard of nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants, I have thought that our health care profession could be improved by using less expensive–but not necessarily less effective–professionals to provide primary care. Now, in an article Want Treatment With Those Pills?, Newsweek is describing just such a revolution in progress. Small,…
In an article titled Raising Beast People, subtitled “Science is blurring the line between humans and animals, Lee Silver has pointed to some of the aspects of science that raise our greatest fears. All of the science fiction stories of humans turning into monsters, all the stories of alien interventions, and all of our nightmares…
The Washington Post has a story about conservative intellectuals who are becoming infuriated with what they see as inaction in recent foreign policy decisions by the Bush administration. In the article, Bush faces backlash on the right, they quote a number of people in this category, but this one summarizes it: “It is Topic A…
The headline today on MSNBC drew my attention back to the middle east after an overnight rest from it. It says: Israel targets Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut, which is, of course, no surprise due to the course of this conflict. In the narrow sense, this conflict is following the pattern of many before it. There…
I got this link through a comment on my previous post on the minimum wage, but I want to make sure to call everyone’s attention to it. David Prenatt, Jr., on his blog Net Esquire, made a number of posts on the minimum wage debate, and particularly on the Earned Income Tax Credit as an…
CNN.com has published a commentary by Bishop T. D. Jakes titled Commentary: No political party can contain us. My wife called my attention to it as a blog topic. Bishop Jakes is explicitly addressing his comments to the African-American community. To what extent should black churches use the pulpit for politics? How much should they…
July 4 is a time to celebrate our country and the things that made it great. It will be a day of fireworks, parades, parties, picnics, and speeches. I believe it’s incredibly important that we learn to celebrate the values that maintain our freedom, and do so in a principled and consistent way. Too often…
PZ Myers has responded to an interview with Ron Numbers in a post titled I’m proud to be non-human. His main point seems to be that those of us who favor evolution need to go all the way and stick totally with the scientific evidence. He says: There is a strong cultural aspect to this…
One of the many e-mail newsletters I get is from the Traditional Values Coalition. Often it seems that the most traditional value from their point of view is overreaction. Recently I got an e-mail from them telling me of the perfidy of the New York Human Relations Commission, which has apparently decided to investigate a…
