Another Election, Another Hurricane

With just two days remaining until the 2010 mid-term elections, all signs point to a conservative landslide in the House, Senate and state legislative races.  This might not come as a huge surprise to students of American political history, who are trained to expect major gains by the "out of power" political party in a mid-term election, but the pre-election polling data suggests we are on the verge of something bigger than the predictable tropical storm . . . this one is shaping up to look more like a hurricane.

The Mosque: Beyond the First Amendment

A sure-fire way to tell when a public issue in the U.S. has become overrun by emotion, at the expense of reason, is when the proclamation of a basic constitutional principle spurs dramatic reactions of support and opposition from folks on either side of the issue.

The Changing Image of America

My family just returned from a wonderful vacation in Australia.  It was a terrific trip and included a number of really special memories made at places like Darling Harbor in Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef.  We like to travel abroad about once a year in order to experience other cultures, see new things and challenge our perspectives.  There is, of course, a great big world out there beyond the borders of the USA.

One thing that I was struck by on this recent trip, however, was the dramatic change in perceptions of the United States government -- and our president in particular -- among "local" residents in the country we were visiting.  In recent years, I've had surprising conversations with waiters, taxi drivers and train passengers in countries such as France, Spain, Italy and England . . . conversations that have left me a bit disheartened about how people in those countries viewed our government as reckless and imperialist.  So it was shocking and altogether encouraging to hear quite different comments from average working folks in Australia, all of whom expressed confidence in our current president as a man of diplomacy and restraint (and a sense of admiration for America that we elected someone as our chief executive who would not have been allowed to use the same Mississippi drinking fountain as me just two generations ago).