Author: Marc Jampole

It was hard not to come away from the first Republican debate with the disorientating feeling that you had just seen week one of “American Idol: Republican Presidential Edition.” The similarities between the Republican pre-primary presidential campaign and a reality TV show start with the candidates. Like most performers on the reality shows that are […]

Read More… from Sarah Palin endorses Trump: Reality TV celebrity buzz or political news?

Unequal treatment of African-Americans by Tampa police has not received much national publicity, probably because, unlike Ferguson, Cleveland, New York, Waller County and Arlington, Texas, Cincinnati, Charlotte and elsewhere, there have been no reported killings in Tampa. But the situation in Tampa symbolizes how deeply racism has infected the criminal justice system across the United […]

Read More… from How deep is racism in criminal justice system? In Tampa, police target black bicycle riders for tickets & harassment

Watching the Republican debate last night made me feel like a westerner spending a lot of time with the Inuit Indians in the frozen Northwest and not understanding the difference between the various colors in the snow that they keep naming, all of which look like the same exact yellow to me. I sure as […]

Read More… from The big loser in last night’s debate is anyone who believes in birth control

Bret Stephens, a frequent opinion columnist for the Wall Street Journal has essentially freed politicians of both parties to say anything they like—no matter how outrageous, offensive or unfactual—knowing they will not have made the most embarrassing statement of the decade. That honor now goes to Bret, who isn’t really all that much of a […]

Read More… from Wall Street Journal writer says “Thank God for Atom Bomb,” frees candidates to say anything without fear of embarrassment

The Democratic Party would do well to strip the religious references and theological discussions from Pope Francis’s recent papal encyclical on the environment and place what’s left into its 2016 platform. Unfortunately, many Democrats may find Francis’ program too radical to implement, as it would take money out of the pockets of most Americans other […]

Read More… from Papal encyclical puts Pope on side of progressives, but ignores need for family planning

In One Nation Under God, Kevin M. Kruse, a Princeton history professor, reconstructs the story of the growth of the twin ideas that the United States is a Christian nation and that a free-market, deregulated, de-unionized United States fulfills the ideals of Christ. Kruse starts his history with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who Kruse says was […]

Read More… from Are we a Christian nation, a nation founded on religious principles or a secular nation with lots of believers?

While OpEdge is on a two-week hiatus, we are running some of the more evergreen columns from past years. This blog entry originally appeared on October 14, 2013. If even just half of what Lisa-ann Gershwin reports in Stung! is true, then many younger readers may be telling their grandchildren stories about the long ago […]

Read More… from OpEdge Redux: New book documents how jellyfish are inheriting the oceans, with a lot of help from humans

While OpEdge is on a two-week hiatus, we are running some of the more evergreen columns from past years. This blog entry originally appeared on September 19, 2013. Last time we cited Tom Sightings, self-proclaimed retirement expert, he was conjuring images of the various dream retirements to which he assumed the American public might aspire.  […]

Read More… from OpEdge Redux: Moving in retirement to avoid school taxes is the epitome of the politics of selfishness

While OpEdge is on a two-week hiatus, we are running some of the more evergreen columns from past years. This blog entry originally appeared on September 15, 2013. Thanks to Cass Sunstein for reviewing Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much in the latest New York Review of Books. In Scarcity, Sendhil Mullainathan and […]

Read More… from OpEdge Redux: New book shows that poverty affects brain and makes it harder to think, work, learn

While OpEdge is on a two-week hiatus, we are running some of the more evergreen columns from past years. This blog entry originally appeared on May 13, 2013. Adults read the New York Times. While the Times does not release readership demographics segmented by age, it lets potential advertisers know that the median age of […]

Read More… from OpEdge Redux: Oreos decides that a “Sesame Street” approach will sell cookies to adults