I haven’t been around the doghouse for awhile (due to Real Life), so I thought I’d drop by to say that I’m alive, and to encourage you to look for my appearances as a returning Community Columnist at the Journal Sentinel. My first one, talking about corporate political donations, can be found here. If you [...]

Recently, both right-wing GOP Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and supposed moderate Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota have expressed sympathy for the “Tenther” movement. For those of you who don’t have the Constitution and Bill of Rights memorized, this is the Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, [...]

Those of you who, like me, were saddened by the ludicrous conservative response to President Obama‘s anodyne “stay-in-school-and-study-hard” speech need to read this article from the St. Petersburg Times compiling some teenagers’ reactions to the speech: they’re quite heartening, and some are very funny. Those Elmbrook School District kids missed out. Comparisons have been made [...]

I was at the Labor Day rally at the Marcus Amphitheater where Sen. Barack Obama spoke. Certainly I expected a high degree of security. But they pulled something new out of their bag of tricks that really left me scratching my head. The guards had made us dump all liquids, just like at the airport [...]

Today’s Journal Sentinel‘s “Crossroads” section is a virtual festival of fallacious thinking, misunderstanding of reality, and just plain wrong-headedness. Reader Advisory Committee Member Kelly Kasum Ressel, for instance, criticizes those meddling local bureaucrats who mandate that pool owners put up proper fencing to keep children out. She complains that this places the responsibility on the [...]

Journal Sentinel Community Columnist Al Smith shares some apocalyptic words about the proposal to require employers in Milwaukee to provide paid sick leave to all employees. In truth, I think a requirement limited to Milwaukee is a bad idea that could backfire; I’d like to see a statewide mandate, or better yet (dreaming here), a [...]