Important Note:
Opinions are fun. My friends tell me I am someone with lots of opinions and that's fine since I don't get mad at others when they disagree with me. In this same spirit I am interested in hearing yours views as long as you are able to share your views without boiling over. I look forward to hearing from you. I tend to write in the form of short essays most of the time, but contributions do not need to be in this same format or size. Some of the content here will date itself pretty quickly, other content may be virtually timeless, this is for the reader to judge.
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Republic verses Democracy?
Posted at: Apr/27/2009 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Watching America,
I have referenced these terms before so I feel I need to explain myself. We all grew up learning in school that the USA is a Democracy, and this is technically true. It is also true that we are not a “pure” Democracy. In a true or pure Democracy the population has a say or vote in everything, and that is obviously not practical. One version of a Democracy is a Republic. In a Republic autho.....read more…
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How fast should national policy change?
Related Category: Politics & Gov,
As our 44th president approaches his 100 days in office mark, I feel some serious questions need to be asked. Obviously, in our “Republic” (we practice “Democracy” only a few days out of each year) with each new president and with that new president comes change. When we elect a new president, it is because based on what was learned during the campaign leading up to the election we.....read more…
Free Will and your Destiny?
Posted at: Apr/13/2009 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Perspectives,
This is one of those great debates in philosophy. Since I am doing the writing I get to expound on my view. Your understanding of these concepts, personal beliefs, and your personal philosophy in this view will have a great deal to do with how your life unfolds. Still, your personal philosophy is "your" personal philosophy. No real discussion on this theme can proceed without throw.....read more…
this is a test
Related Category: Environment,
what are we really doing here
Was 1968 a turning point?
Posted at: Apr/09/2009 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Historical Insights,
There is a lot of good material out there on the historical events of 1968 and how critical they were to defining change in America. History is by its very nature a study of the past, so with 40+ years having gone by it is easy to see how many things changed in America and the world during that year. I was only 11 years old at the time so while my father had the evening news on, I honestly did n.....read more…
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What is the future of Detroit?
Posted at: Apr/02/2009 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Economics,
Predicting the future has never been a science. For those who know me, you know that I like to look to the lessons of the past to speculate on the path for the future. But the predicament that our American auto industry is in is pretty much uncharted territory. In stead of expressing an opinion I will try to pull together everything I think I know and we’ll have to see how things unfold in a m.....read more…
Abusing a Trillion
Posted at: Mar/26/2009 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Common Sense,
Have you noticed, we are being barraged every day now with the term “trillion”. I get the feeling there is a cavalier expectation you can gloss over large amounts by wrapping them in the trillion ribbon. It is no longer a 2200 billion dollar budget, now it is a 3.5 trillion dollar budget. Maybe there is a presumption that this makes the number smaller and more palatable. One trillion is still.....read more…
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Stay away from the Depression Word
Posted at: Mar/25/2009 : Posted by: mel
Okay, so times are pretty tough. The stock market has lost a lot of value in the past 18 months, some banks are failing, many more people are out of work than in decades, and people are losing their home. Hey, this sounds a whole lot like that thing all of us studied in school years ago…The Great Depression. For all of the aforementioned reasons and many more it is really easy to jump to that c.....read more…
Where were our media watchdogs?
Posted at: Mar/09/2009 : Posted by: mel
Okay, so we have a global economic meltdown. Sub-prime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations, car makers making too many cars, excessive government waste and ear-marks, the list of contributing factors goes on and on. We are all now very much aware of what went wrong and what we should not have done or allowed. So where were our media watchdogs? In this country we give the press a grea.....read more…
Improvising our way out of the recession
Posted at: Mar/06/2009 : Posted by: mel
Any historian or reader of history will tell you there is a lot to be learned from history. Sometimes reading history presents us with a previous cause and effect that can be applied with great similarity to a current situation enabling us to predict a reasonable expectation. Sometimes the lessons of history are much more vague and need a broader interpretation. The depression of the 1930’s .....read more…
