IMPORTANT READS

THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’--You've probably seen one of the many gender-neutral bathroom signs that have popped up over the past couple of years. On the face of it, the message they convey is simple: Anyone can use this facility. 

GUEST COMMENTARY-More governors need to show their courage. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has proposed a budget calling on existing government employees and retirees to bear the costs of proposed pension reforms because citizens and taxpayers have already contributed enough to the retirement system. The proposed changes include higher contributions by employees and lower post-retirement increases for retirees. 

HULLABALOO--Here's your president in China, completely reversing everything he's ever said before and sounding like Chauncey Gardner:   

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?--Many of the recent stories about sexual abuse claims against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and other powerful actors, journalists and executives mention settlements either they or their employers made to silence women who accused them of misconduct.

POLITICS--Democrats are fighting again. The trigger this time is former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile’s forthcoming book, which says that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was given significant control over the DNC long before she became the party’s nominee.  

CRIMES OF INTIMIDATION-With all the current stories about endemic sexual harassment in the entertainment industry from the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, and others, I find it surprising that one critical point is never discussed in the media: What Weinstein, O'Reilly, and others have engaged in has little to do with sex and everything to do with criminal assault, battery, and other crimes of intimidation by men with profound feelings of inadequacy. 

NEW GEOPGRAPHY--Perhaps nothing has been more ironic than the canonization of respectable, moderate-seeming Republicans. People like Mitt Romney and the Bush family, once castigated as practitioners of unmitigated greed or even Hitlerian fascists, have suddenly become laudable in the mainstream media.

NEW GEOGRAPHY-“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” — Arnold J. Toynbee. From the heart of Europe to North America, nativism, sometimes tinged by white nationalist extremism, is on the rise. In recent elections, parties identified, sometimes correctly, as alt-right have made serious gains in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, pushing even centrist parties in their direction. The election of Donald Trump can also be part of this movement. 

PER DAILY-Probably the greatest mistake made today in liberal and progressive thought and in the political opposition to Trumpism is believing that, in the end, truth will out. Nothing could be less true. More and more, a dominant narrative composed of alternative facts (aka fake news) has supplanted the truth. In our present-day reality, truth is often labeled fake news by those unwilling to hear it. 

DEMS NOMINATION PROCESS RIGGED---In an explosive and "deeply disturbing" piece for Politico Magazine on Thursday, former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Donna Brazile drew upon her brief experience at the organization's helm to reveal the extent to which the 2016 nomination process was "rigged" in favor of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  

POLITICAL SECURITY-Seasoned conspiracy buffs refrained from getting their hopes up too high after President Trump’s announcement that he wouldn’t prevent the scheduled release of thousands of files pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the National Archives. They were right to do so; hundreds of files ended up being held back which won’t be released until well into 2018, if at all. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-Rose McGowan alleges that after Harvey Weinstein raped her, she was blacklisted. In an industry which made the phrase, “You’ll never work in this town again,” world renown, one should not be surprised. That phrase sums up both the predator’s modus operandi and the fact that entire industries and professions protect predators and further victimize the innocent.  Unless moviedom sided with Weinstein, his blacklisting would not have worked. 

MY TURN-I freely admit that I am a news junkie and have been most of my life. I also admit I am becoming increasingly bored with many of my favorite newscasters, panels and opinion makers. It feels like every other story or expert panel is about President Donald J. Trump. So, maybe he has given an economic boost to both print and digital media... but when is enough enough?  

CORRUPTION WATCH-The Republic is broken! As a federated democratic republic, the United States of America was supposed to balance political power to ensure that too much power would not accumulate in one place. As Americans once knew, the genius of the U.S. Constitution was in its balancing of power against power in order to avoid tyranny. 

HALLOWEEN POLITICS--The Mars family has made billions selling us M&Ms, Snickers, and countless other Halloween treats for a century now.  But when it comes to paying tax, the Mars family seems to be all tricks and no treats.

PERSPECTIVE--Do you remember when, in first grade, you made mosaics out of colored construction paper?  You carefully cut the different pieces of paper into little half inch tiles and patiently pasted them onto a bigger paper with many other little tiles to make a picture of a whale, or George Washington, or a house.  Remember?  

WAR POLITICS--America’s endless war quietly moves across the broken nations of the world. Every so often, U.S. soldiers die, as four Green Berets did several weeks ago in … Niger.

CURRENCY POLITICS-Digital currencies, in their current form, should be prohibited by law. And not because they are a Ponzi scheme (which they are), and not because they can help facilitate criminal activity (which they do), but because they incur colossal social waste. 

AT LENGTH-As the resident skeptic in this part of the great metropolis at the Port of Los Angeles, I tend to have contrarian reactions when I hear people start repeating mindless refrains about making America great again or insisting that standing for the National Anthem is somehow a mandatory expression of patriotism. 

GUEST WORDS-It never ceases to surprise me how the mere suggestion that our current global capitalistic system is not the best humanity can do for itself, is so often met with virulent hostility. One would think that when we are still recovering from the economic crisis of 2007-2008 (and many economists see an even worse crisis on the horizon), when inequality has been steadily rising since the neoliberal turn of the early 1980s, when real wages have remained virtually stagnant, and the list goes on – one would think that perhaps we would keep an open mind regarding alternatives; instead of buying the tired old argument that anything else must either lead to totalitarianism, or be incurably utopian.

MY TURN-Having just had a birthday, I must admit I am considered chronologically old. At this stage in life, we are happy to still celebrate birthdays but they seem to come around a lot faster than they used to. But I don't feel old! And therein lies the problem. Gail Sheehey wrote in her book, "Passages," that all of us are ten to fifteen years younger than our parents were at the same age.