I'm a native of New York City who's called the Green Mountain state of Vermont home since the summer of 1994. A former freelance journalist, I'm a fiercely independent freethinker who's highly skeptical of authority figures -- especially when they're on the wrong side of the issues I care about. But I'm not afraid to also call into question those with whom I would usually be "on the same page" if and when they, too, are on the wrong side of the issues I care about.
What I'm Reading
The "Conversations With God" series By Neale Donald Walsch
Now We Know Why the Late 'King of Pop' Consistently Refused to Allow Prince Michael, Paris and Prince Michael II to be Photographed: Neither of the Children Have Any Biracial Physical Features -- Which, if Jackson Really Was Their Father, Would Be Genetically Impossible, as Jackson Was Black and Their Mother is WhiteMichael Jackson said one of the main reasons he decided to undertake the grueling process of preparing for the 50 concerts he was scheduled to perform in London later this... Read Full Story
The Time Is Long Overdue to Acknowledge Publicly That the Last 25 Years of Michael Jackson's Life Would Have Been Much Different -- Indeed, Much Healthier For Him Both Physically and Psychologically -- Had He Had the Courage to Come Out of the ClosetThe night that forever altered Michael Jackson's life: The March 25, 1983 taping of the NBC television special "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever," in which Jackson stunned the live audience at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Ang... Read Full Story
In the Hot and Sultry Small Hours of June 28, 1969, Gay Patrons at New York's Stonewall Inn Fought Back Against a Raid by Cops Who Peppered Them With Homophobic Insults and Threats; Forty Years Later, Gays and Lesbians Are Settling Down, Getting Married and Even Raising FamiliesIn this, the only known photograph taken of the first night of the Stonewall Riots on June 28, 1969, New York City police officers push back protesters while conducting a raid of the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Vill... Read Full Story
Mousavi, Who Was Iran's Prime Minister During the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, Was a Bitter Rival of Khamenei, Who Was President -- Until Khamenei Had PM's Post Abolished After Becoming Supreme Leader in 1989; Current Regime Can Ill-Afford a Repeat of China's Bloody Tienanmen Square MassacrePent-up forces dating back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution may have been unleashed by the hotly disputed results of Iran's June 12 presidential election. With opposition supporters claiming massiv... Read Full Story
Nevada Senator -- a Darling of Social Conservatives -- Resigns GOP Leadership Post After Admitting He Had an Extramarital Affair; Latest Sex Scandal to Rock Republicans Is Making Mincemeat Out of Social Conservatives' Holier-Than-Thou MoralismAnother one bites the dust: Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada) speaks to reporters in Las Vegas Wednesday after announcing that he was resigning from his post as head of the Republican Policy Committee. On Tuesday, Ensign stunned his Republican colleague... Read Full Story
Re-Election of Ahmadinejad -- Openly Challenged by the Opposition as Fraudulent -- May Have Been Iranian Voters' Rejection of Western Expectations of an Iranian Replay of Obama's Election Victory in the U.S. and a Direct Snub of His Conciliatory Speech to the Muslim World in CairoThese two men on a motorcycle speed past a burning bus in Tehran Sunday, as protests against the hotly-disputed re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued into a second day. While the re... Read Full Story
Details Remain Murky About Whether TV Reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee Were On North Korean or Chinese Side of Cross-Border Bridge When They Were Seized in March; North Korea Has Long History of Its Agents Abducting Foreign Nationals -- Third American Who Escaped Capture May Hold Key to Resolving Question, But He's Not TalkingWere American journalists Euna Lee (left) and Laura Ling -- seized by North Korean border guards in March and sentenced Monday to 12 years of hard labor for "i... Read Full Story
Establishing a 'Single-Payer' System Would Require Completely Doing Away With All Private Health Care -- and That Would Violate the Constitution; Direct Competition Between Public and Private Health-Care Systems Is the Best Health-Care Reform That Advocates For a 'Single-Payer' System Can Realistically Expect to Pass in CongressSenators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) (left) and Max Baucus (D-Montana) listen to President Obama at a White House meeting last week on health-care reform, just... Read Full Story
The Leaders Directly Responsible For the Massacre Have Long Since Faded From Power and Today's China Is a Vastly Different Country From 1989, But Beijing Still Rejects as Alien the Western Concept of Democracy; Meanwhile, a Year After Sichuan Earthquake, 'Disaster Tourism' Springs Up in Stricken ProvinceThe Goddess of Democracy, a papier-mache statue modeled after New York's Statue of Liberty, towers over thousands of students protesting for greater individual freedom and demo... Read Full Story
When the Supreme Court Struck Down Laws That Banned Interracial Marriages in 1967, Public Opposition to Such Unions Was Far Stronger -- and More Vicious -- Than Opposition to Same-Gender Marriages Is Today; Gay Leaders Have Made a Big Mistake in Not Going After Same-Gender Marriage Bans in Federal Court on the Same 14th Amendment Equal-Protection Grounds as the 'Loving v. Virginia' CaseOpponents of same-gender marriage are increasingly running into a constitutional brick wall as a gro... Read Full Story
