Rather than spend time exploring the political discrimination and the asinine statements made today by almost-ex-US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I thought it appropriate to instead spend some time on something and someone Americans should be proud of. The US Tennis Association honored Althea Gibson today, at their opening ceremony of the US Open. 50 years ago, she was the first African American woman to win the US Open (then called the US Nationals). She broke into tennis only three years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, and she won, and won, and won – 17 championship titles in all.

Althea’s story is inspiring, and her influence on the sport undeniable. But her story, indeed our country’s story, does not begin and end with her court statistics. (more…)

I’ve been stewing some time about CBS’s upcoming reality show (read: social experiment) called Kid Nation. I’ve thought this show was just a bad idea from the start, after what I admit was a fleeting moment of interest and curiosity when I first saw a commercial for the show. But it wasn’t until NPR did a story questioning not only the production’s motives, but more importantly the long terms impacts of the experience on the children itself, that I gave the matter much thought.

No-one could possibly be fooling themselves to think that CBS made this show any reason other than to make money — and definitely not to “promote goodwill and a learning experience [for children] on a positive note,” as a mother quoted in this Detroit Free Press story hypothesized. So what’s bothering me is the general media silence and lack of public concern over the new show, the NPR show notwithstanding.

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Just in case you haven’t seen Michael Moore’s Sicko, or perhaps didn’t believe him, this great story is a second chance for you to WAKE UP!

Reprinted with permission from the July issue of the Ester Republic.

Barring the proverbial”act of God,” many people seem to agree that Matanuska Maid’s days are numbered — the valiant, last-minute coup detat by Governor Palin notwithstanding. It is not for a lack of vision; in fact you might say that too much vision is what has steered the dairy down this path. Mat Maid has been operating as if it bore a mandate to offer all manner of dairy products to all Alaskans, all the time, including some unexpected ones like Florida orange juice and a pro-biotic yogurt called “Glacier Yo” intended for export to Pacific Rim countries. There is plenty of blame to go around, and the folks who won’t buy local milk because they think it costs too much deserve their share of it, but nevertheless you simply can’t have an industrial dairy without first having a dairy industry.

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