Category: News and Opinion

I have this recurring vision that political cartoonist Thomas Nast is still alive and he portrays the head of Goldman Sachs as a crouching beast with a serpent’s tail, devil horns and a long wet snake tongue.

I have this recurring vision that political cartoonist Thomas Nast is still alive and he portrays the head of Goldman Sachs as a crouching beast with a serpent’s tail, devil horns and a long wet snake tongue.

My tendency of late to draw comparisons between the Ancient Romans and modern America has drawn criticism from some quarters with these critics saying that both peoples are different, distinct and separated from each other by two millennia and therefore using Roman actions as a guide to implementing American policy is inapplicable.

I hesitate to spend any more time talking about the State Senate reorganization until I’m sure there is actually a contest.  

In the 1950s and 60s Americans became fascinated by the freedom of cross county travel inspired by Jack Kerouac books like On the Road and Dharma Bums.  But today many Americans feel that these are bygone days.  This is absolutely untrue.  There is a new generation of Dharma Bums who just don’t travel the U.S. but the entire world.

There is an ongoing dispute in the United States between bar associations, the legal profession and politicians as to how to select judges.  Should they be appointed by politicians or boards or elected after going through a political process.  None of these choices seems appropriate.

This year, I am thankful for Domestic Partner, Dybbuk, Cerberus, the Triumph of Sanity in America, the fact that there is a place called Israel and the fact that I’m not living there.  

I was not going to mourn the end of Hostess, but then I remembered the ecstasy of touring the Wonder Bread Factory in Paterson, NJ, when I attended the Barnert Temple Nursery School in 1962-63. Life never smelled as good as that factory, and at the end they gave us each a freshly baked mini-loaf.

Can be found in a single blog post from The Economist magazine. Read this and you will understand the situation we are in, and what we are facing. Read it, and you will understand why we are facing ten-plus years of decisions about who will be made worse off, and in what way, due to the financial and fiscal frat party of the past 30 years. It wasn't just the public sector. It was businesses and individual households. It was beyond my understanding, and contrary to my values.

The popular thing to do, what most people wanted to do, was to satisfy the "I want for me now!" impulse. This was done by selling the future. The deal was cut in New York, and the fees were large. And now it is the future. The executive/financial class may promise three percent GDP growth if you keep their taxes low and their pay sky high, and the political/union class may promise seven percent returns on public employee pension funds to put off sacrificing the rest of us for the deals they did with themselves. Not true.

LEW FIDLER: Yesterday, I expressed my disappointment in my friend and former colleague Simcha Felder’s decision to caucus with Republicans and asked for an explanation. Through a spokesman, Simcha issued a statement which on its face lacks any substantive credibility.