The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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Romney's Speech Goal Tonight: I'm Not Caledon Hockley

By Elusive Trope on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 7:33pm |

Most Americans are fascinated with the wealthy and the uberwealthy.  At some level the fascination is with envy - hence the obsession with some with the lotteries.  At some level it is  a fascination that one has for any culture one does not have access to - be it the mafia or a tribe in Papua New Guinea. 

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Real Health Care Reform's Biggest Challenge: the 75%ers

By Elusive Trope on Thu, 06/28/2012 - 9:45am |

ABC News/Washington Post poll draws this conclusion:

One key challenge is that while Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the system overall, vastly more – 75 percent – rate their own quality of care favorably. The difficulty thus remains where it’s been all along: Forging solutions to the current system’s problems that don’t leave people fearing they’ll lose what many see as their own good quality of care now.

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A Little Experiment

By Elusive Trope on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 10:04am |

As the political discussions heat up with the approaching 2012 elections, I think it is of value to ponder this little experiment.

We create through the wonders of cloning two candidates to run for the US Representative seat in every district in the country.  The one running on the Democratic ticket would be a shoe in for membership in the Progressive Caucus, whereas the other would sit up shop in the Tea Party Caucus.  Neither of them would be wackos or nutjubs.  Both would be skilled in the game of politics.  A Bernie Sanders vs. Mike Pence sort of battle. 

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Memorial Day in America

By Elusive Trope on Mon, 05/28/2012 - 11:45am |

Just figured someone ought to write something about it.  I have never served in the military, nor have I lost anyone close to me as a result of their service.  My dad was in Korean War, but he never spoke about it (he didn't see actual combat, being stationed in Japan).  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all the other conflicts around the globe, are inevitably abstractions to me for the most part.  As with everyone who has a heart, I hate war.  It would be nice if life was so simple as that.

These pictures are some of the 60 photos from a blog on the website theBrigade, called Memorial Day...Home.  This website is cousin site to theChive website, which is one of the most popular sites globally out there.  Taking a trek through these sites I think reveals a facet of the American culture, both the good and the bad, the mundane and the profound.  But just pondering all of the pictures of this one blog is enough to make one ponder - what exactly is up to each of us alone.

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Something Happened in Chicago I Hear

By Elusive Trope on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 10:37am |

Another high profile political event came and went.  This time it was NATO in Chicago.  Some leaders met.  Some people hit the streets to protest and have their voices heard.  There was some clashes between police and protesters.  Some people were hurt, some were arrested, some were hurt and arrested.  The media took pictures and wrote stories about the leaders and the protests outside. 

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Another Trope Pondering: Thor, Obama and Haiti

By Elusive Trope on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 7:53pm |

Many people will spend considerable time discussing that Obama will raise somewhere near a billion dollars. But then I think about this:

Marvel's Avenger has already through last weekend grossed domestically $389,473,290

The Hunger Games has already through last weekend grossed domestically $387,870,286

Together they have grossed $777,343,576.  That is more than Obama raised for his entire 2008 campaign.

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The Speed Limit: What Would Mitt Do?

By Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/17/2012 - 2:32pm |

I recently spent some time driving across a good portion of this fine country and as one might expect I saw a number of maneuvers on our nation's highways that would lead one to conclude we are a nation of idiots.  Or at least a nation that has a good number of idiots.  Actually I would have more choice words for these folks.  And one of the most glaring examples I experienced occurred on I-15 between Salt Lake and Provo, which is currently under serious construction.

Like most of these incidents of idiocy, the I-15 idiocy revolved around a group of cars wanting to go faster than another group of cars.  The latter group, of which I belong, is usually attempting to drive at or near the speed limit, whereas the former group is seeking to move down the road at speeds 10, 15 or 20 miles per hour faster than the posted limit.

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Obama, Catholics and The New Old War

By Elusive Trope on Tue, 02/07/2012 - 10:40am |

Here we go again.

As a New York Times blog puts it:

When President Obama‘s administration last month unveiled rules that would require some religious hospitals, colleges and other institutions to provide free contraception to their employees under the new health care law, it might have seemed to be a political winner.

The idea of birth control being covered by insurance companies is popular across the political spectrum, even among Catholics. The new policy will exempt churches themselves and will have no effect on doctors who object to prescribing contraception. And the decision means the president’s health care law will help make birth control cheaper for millions of women.

So life should be good, right? Wrong.

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The Fallacy of Mark Levin's Ameritopia: What on Earth Can I Do?

By Elusive Trope on Thu, 02/02/2012 - 9:37pm |

The environmental activist Hazel Wolf once wrote that if one wanted to convince an economist, one had to talk to them like an economist.  In the contentious atmosphere of socio-political discourse, this is often easier said than done. The principles and fundamental assumptions of the economist are in the grand scheme of things are relatively easy to grasp.  The challenge becomes how to translate one's stance through the prism of those principles and assumptions.

When we confront, however, the vast scope of socio-political ideologies the situation gets a whole lot messier. 

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