Category: Politics

Self explana­to­ry.

What I Told Our Kids

I’ve been inter­est­ed in pol­i­tics for most of my life and Angela is much the same. So we of course dis­cuss pol­i­tics quite a bit around the house. I do my best to fol­low my par­ents’ lead and 1) not get over­ly emo­tion­al­ly or upset about pol­i­tics and 2) not present my opin­ion as the… Con­tin­ue read­ing What I Told Our Kids

PAC Insanity

School boards and par­ent orga­ni­za­tions should be real­ly bor­ing stuff, but it’s been pret­ty heat­ed in Williamson Coun­ty, TN in the past year. A local par­ent orga­ni­za­tion called Williamson Strong was fined $5,000 dol­lars recent­ly when it was decid­ed that they were oper­at­ing as an unreg­is­tered Polit­i­cal Action Com­mit­tee (PAC). They are appeal­ing the deci­sion… Con­tin­ue read­ing PAC Insan­i­ty

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Categorized as Politics

On Marriage Equality

I haven’t writ­ten much on my blog in the past few years, let along any­thing about pol­i­tics. But this has been some week, has­n’t it? Today’s US Supreme Court 5–4 rul­ing strik­ing down anti-same-sex-mar­riage laws —such as those we have had! here in Ten­nessee— feels like a once-in-a-life­­time kind of change. That so many Amer­i­cans… Con­tin­ue read­ing On Mar­riage Equality

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Elections

It does­n’t amount to mak­ing any dif­fer­ence, but as a rule I nev­er vote for a can­di­date who is run­ning unop­posed. Sad­ly, this hap­pens a lot. Many of the races for Con­gress I’ve ever vot­ed in were this way. There was one elec­tion in Rich­mond, Vir­ginia in which I lit­er­al­ly vot­ed for no one (though I… Con­tin­ue read­ing Elec­tions

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Mike Rowe on Trade Labor

Mike Rowe of Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel’s Dirty Jobs tes­ti­fied before the U.S. Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Com­merce, Sci­ence and Trans­porta­tion this past Wednes­day. The entire writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny is worth read­ing. I can guar­an­tee you that it con­tains the most heart-war­m­ing sto­ry of plumb­ing repair you’ll read all day. I com­plete­ly agree with every­thing he says. Even in a… Con­tin­ue read­ing Mike Rowe on Trade Labor

I Miss Ned Ray

After his last term as gov­er­nor of Ten­nessee, the I Miss Ned Ray bumper stick­ers were a fair­ly com­mon site around the state1. He was cer­tain­ly a pop­u­lar gov­er­nor dur­ing his two terms in office. Today, for­mer Gov. McWhert­er passed away in Nashville at the age of 80. He was a great leader and he… Con­tin­ue read­ing I Miss Ned Ray

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Tax and Spend Conservatives

USA Today’s Den­nis Cau­chon: Fed­er­al, state and local tax­es — includ­ing income, prop­er­ty, sales and oth­er tax­es — con­sumed 9.2% of all per­son­al income in 2009, the low­est rate since 1950, the Bureau of Eco­nom­ic Analy­sis reports. That rate is far below the his­toric aver­age of 12% for the last half-cen­­tu­ry. The over­all tax bur­den… Con­tin­ue read­ing Tax and Spend Conservatives

Self Identification

This was the first year that I ever got to fill out a cen­sus as hus­band, father, home­own­er, and all around adult. The last cen­sus, both Angela and I were liv­ing in a dor­mi­to­ries (in two dif­fer­ent states, no less). It was such an small but sat­is­fac­to­ry sense of self-worth. In the big­ger pic­ture, the… Con­tin­ue read­ing Self Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion

Liberals Who Pine for Conservatives

As a lib­er­al who grew up with, works with, and lives with great peo­ple who are con­ser­v­a­tives, this piece by the Wash­ing­ton Post’s E.J. Dionne, Jr. speaks vol­umes about how I feel about them. Which is that con­ser­v­a­tive voic­es are an impor­tant par­ty of a pro­gres­sive soci­ety. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, as Dionne points out, we haven’t seen… Con­tin­ue read­ing Lib­er­als Who Pine for Conservatives