Civil Discourse Now

Where the far left and far right overlap for fun and enlightenment

All Blog Posts (1,683)

Happy "Discovery Day," because "Columbus Day" is as appropriate as the Washington Redskins.

   Children in the early 1960s were taught about the discovery of the New World. Christopher Columbus was depicted as a courageous gambler. Contrary to widely-held belief, we were taught, he thought the World was round. He took his case to the benevolent monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, who decided to gamble on this well-intentioned man of vision. Columbus set sail with three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. As the voyage west grew longer, his crews became mutinous.…

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Added by Mark Small on October 14, 2013 at 6:10am — No Comments

Tasks for which we need the Federal Government.

   One could argue people should try to reach inside themselves, each to find that "noble savage" of whom Jean Jacques Rousseau once wrote. Between romps with his latest wealthy female backer, Rousseau envisioned a primordial figure who was innocent and resourceful. The "noble savage" had no need for government or the social contract, the fictional agreement a person makes with the sovereign in which the former trades freedom for security from the latter. 

   There would appear to…

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Added by Mark Small on October 11, 2013 at 5:44am — No Comments

Pepper Snyder and Mark Small will engage in a dialogue, moderated by Gary Snyder, on tonight's "Roundtable" on "The Gary Snyder Show."

   On my father's side of the family, construction contractors go back at least three generations. Starting at the age of eight, I worked Saturday mornings for 50 cents per hour to clean the office and shop areas of my old man's plumbing, heating & air-conditioning place of business (always called, by him, "The Shop"). He gave me a choice: that or I could attend catechism classes. I chose dollars over deity. Later, he went solely into commercial sheet metal work. I continued to put in…

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Added by Mark Small on October 10, 2013 at 5:30am — No Comments

Awesome! Let the House vote on this mess!

   Speaker of the House John Boehner denied this weekend there are enough votes in the House of Representatives to pass what is called a "clean" bill to fund the Federal government. A "clean bill," in the context of the current shutdown, would be a bill that authorizes funding of the Federal government without any extraneous provisions, i.e. provisions to de-fund the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. President Obama addressed the Speaker's statement and asked the Speaker send…

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Added by Mark Small on October 8, 2013 at 6:00am — No Comments

Syria, shut-downs, and 15 minutes of Fame: each of us holds a shopping bag in each hand and stands before the tank run by corporations..

   The noted political philosopher Andy Warhol---seriously, the pop-culture artist who made money when he painted a picture of a Campbell's Soup can on canvas and proved, as Marshall McLuhan once wrote, "Art is anything you can get away with"---once observed something to the effect that everyone should have 15 minutes of fame. Americans apparently have taken this notion to heart, as political issues are fed, one at a time, into a media pressure-cooker and occupy the public's limited…

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Added by Mark Small on October 7, 2013 at 6:19am — No Comments

Today's Show: at Rehab Bar and Grill, 5135 South Emerson.

   We shall stream "live" from the Rehab Bar and Grill, 5135 South Emerson, from 11 am to 1 pm. If you head south on Emerson, go through the intersection at Thompson Road. A K-Mart is on the corner. Go south a bit more to the strip center in K-Mart's backyard. Joining us as guest panelists:

   Jeff Kunkel is a well-known occultist; musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist; author, writer and philosopher; historian of tarot cards; and a student of Celtic (not Boston NBA team)…

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Added by Mark Small on October 5, 2013 at 8:01am — No Comments

Pepper Snyder, American public education, last night's "Round Table," and Saturday's topic: gerrymandering.

   Gary Snyder's "Round Table," if you have not heard it, is a political discussion that runs weeknights on "Indiana Talks," roughly from 8:30 to 9. Last night I was privileged to be a guest, along with Pepper Snyder, who co-hosts a show on "Indiana Talks," and Andrew Markle, who is a candidate for Indiana House from the 99th District. At some point our conversation turned to American education. Mr. Markle is under the mistaken impression that Finland, to which many people look and regard as…

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Added by Mark Small on October 4, 2013 at 5:43am — No Comments

Government shut-down's effects: The "What? Me worry?" attitude of the Far Right.

   People posted comments yesterday and the day before to the effect nothing has changed for them since the Federal government shutdown. The phenomenon is reminiscent of people in the 1800s scoffed at the notion little organisms they could not see with the naked eye (viruses) or practices in which their people had engaged for centuries (obtaining water downstream from where people deposited human waste) could cause disease. Tuesday seemed like any other day. 

   I would like to point…

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Added by Mark Small on October 3, 2013 at 6:00am — No Comments

Obamacare, gerrymandering, Andrew Kirch and Miah Akston, and anarchy.

   Sometimes aspects of one's life criss-cross, then, more infrequently, they come together to form a nexus.

   Yesterday, at about this time, shortly after 5 a.m., I tried to get onto one the health insurance marketplace for people who live in Indiana. I could not get through. Finally a customer service rep came onto the chat box, apologized for the backlog and asked that I try back later. Later I learned there had been over one million (1,000,000) hits on the website before 7 a.m.…

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Added by Mark Small on October 2, 2013 at 5:47am — No Comments

Andrew and Miah and guns, oh my: responses to a couple of unexpected arguments.

   As I prepared for yesterday's debate with Andrew Kirch and Miah Akston, I focused on the insurance exchanges and possible rates of premiums under Obamacare, presently scheduled to take effect day after tomorrow. The reasons for the focus were selfish, to a large degree. I have a pre-existing condition, about which I have made no secrets. I blogged a series about multiple sclerosis and the Mini-Marathon last year with a reprise this year. Rates for health insurance will fall. With multiple…

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Added by Mark Small on September 29, 2013 at 6:33am — No Comments

Today's Show: Miah Akston and Andrew D. Kirch debate with me on Obamacare, 11 am to 1 pm.

   Public discourse about the Affordable Care Act a/k/a Obamacare has sorely lacked facts. A few weeks ago, on "Civil Discourse Now," Ryan Ripley of "We Are Libertarians" and I engaged in civil and, I thought, informative debate about whether ACA/Obamacare was or is constitutional.  

   Today Miah Akston of "The Uncontrollables" and "Creating Miah" and Andrew D. Kirch will join me from 11 am to 1 pm to discuss/debate/argue generally about ACA/Obamacare.

   There are a lot of…

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Added by Mark Small on September 28, 2013 at 6:13am — No Comments

Obamacare: until October 1 companies will not offer plans for people with pre-existing conditions; what does that tell you?

   I have a pre-existing condition, multiple sclerosis. Sarah is a cancer survivor. We were soaked by health insurance premiums, of almost two grand a month. I got us switched to a PPO last year for a significantly lower premium, under $600 total. One problem is the prescription drug coverage is not nearly as good as what my policy had been. Nonetheless, that monthly number was lowered.

   Since last year, even after we obtained the PPO coverage, I have shopped for major medical…

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Added by Mark Small on September 27, 2013 at 5:30am — No Comments

"Dexter": Season finale shaped into mediocrity? QUASI-SPOILER ALERT.

   Serial killers fascinate the American public. "Silence of the Lambs" is only one example of a work from Hollywood, or whatever geographical location one uses to describe film/TV, that glorifies serial killers. Fascination does not equate with cheerleading, but some parts of that fascination overlap. Jack the Ripper might have been the first serial killer to gain notoriety. More recently, when Ted Bundy was tried, he had groupies who sat in court each day and hung on his every word and…

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Added by Mark Small on September 25, 2013 at 6:13am — No Comments

Part Two: Does the State have the power to outlaw red shirts?

   Whether the color is blue, an example I used last week, or red, as I shall use today, the question still is the same. Do States, or their political subdivisions such as counties and cities, have power, under the United States Constitution, to outlaw whatever conduct they wish under so-called police powers of the States? I use the color red today as I found studies that have determined the color red can cause some people to become angry. I will address that in a moment.

   Paul…

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Added by Mark Small on September 24, 2013 at 6:01am — No Comments

Nazis and Leith, North Dakota: an exercise in civics.

   An aspiring but ultimately (at best) mediocre Austrian artist attempted to take over Germany in a Munich beer hall. Adolf Hitler learned from the experience. Later he sought to take over Germany---finally becoming a citizen along the way---by using the system. Although his National Socialist Workers Party, the nickname for which, "Nazi," derived from the acronym of German words, at first garnered few followers and not many more votes, ultimately, Hitler succeeded in his quest. Hitler's…

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Added by Mark Small on September 23, 2013 at 6:13am — No Comments

Irony is to hit the "like" on FaceBook, to show support for a friend when the friend suffers.

   Ruth Patchett Collins and I were in grade school together, maybe as far back as first grade. (I would say what elementary school that was, but since "first elementary school" is a clearance question for credit cards, I'll pass.) She was one of those kids with whom we migrated up the chain and closer to the door and graduation. I had not heard from her, nor she from me, since we left school way back when. The wonders of Face Book as they are, we friended (a noun converted to a verb) each…

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Added by Mark Small on September 22, 2013 at 5:30am — No Comments

Polka, the Roman Catholic Church, local politics and guns.

   When Hoosier (by relocation, not birth) Richard Gatling developed the Gatling gun, the first rapid-fire weapon for combat, it is said he thought his invention would bring an end to war. He could not believe people would wage war in the face of such an awesome weapon. Gatling had no appreciation for human folly.

   Gun violence has been in the national and local news. People were mowed down in D.C. and in Chicago. Whether the weapon du jour, the AR 15, was used by the gunman, it…

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Added by Mark Small on September 21, 2013 at 6:00am — No Comments

Pleasant Saturday evening on the deck BLASTED by a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs."

   The first I heard of Black Sabbath was as the punch line for a couple of jokes by Cheech and Chong in 1973. A short time later I had 8-track tapes of "Master of Reality" and something else. Ozzy and the boys played definitive heavy-metal. The tape-deck in the 1962 (or was it a 1961?) Ford Econoline van I drove was hooked up to big speakers in the back, the walls of which were painted flat-black. The speakers were loud, albeit not as loud as the sound systems most teenagers or early-20s…

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Added by Mark Small on September 15, 2013 at 6:00am — No Comments

Does the State have the power to outlaw blue shirts?

   I like the color blue. For several years when I worked at Purdue University, then Northwestern University School of Law, then again at Purdue in those schools' libraries, I usually wore any of half-a-dozen powder-blue Oxford shirts I owned. The way in which the color blends with blue jeans never has been a consideration, although I like the blue there, too.

   If in the next weeks the City-County Council of Indianapolis and Marion County were to pass an ordinance, and Indy's…

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Added by Mark Small on September 13, 2013 at 6:07am — 1 Comment

NASCAR: big bucks go to a sport where the "fix" has been in.

   The image of NASCAR, a/k/a American stock car racing, in the 1960s was of people grabbing real "stock" cars---as one would buy off the showroom floor---wheeling them into garages, souping them up, and racing them on dirt tracks or the beach of Daytona (okay, that ended a while back) or on some track in the South. Compared to cars raced at the Indianapolis 500, and any tracks in a USAC circuit built to sustain races, for cars made for the Indy 500, for the rest of a "season" until the next…

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Added by Mark Small on September 12, 2013 at 5:59am — No Comments

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