LikeTheDew.com

The Dew is going dark on January 31st

January 31, 2022 the LikeTheDew.com will shut down. The site. The email server. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. And all the others I can find. I’d hoped to write a long piece about being too old, too tired to keep up with social media, how dated a long-story site is, but you probably know that already. I’d also planned to write a thank you to each of the writers including some of the things I…

Our Machiavellian Moment on Climate by Maurice Carter

It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.Niccolò Machiavelli, The…

Supreme Court gerrymandering decisions harming Texans by Jack Bernard

Extremist right wing publications are celebrating the latest Robert’s Supreme Court blow to democracy. Specifically, this SCOTUS has ruled against having gerrymandering cases, no matter how unfair, brought into the Federal Courts. This action represents a major change, coming after the activist Robert’s court gutted the voting rights act years ago, ignoring decades of precedent.  These media…

Dark Money Flows From Corporations To The Atlanta Police Foundation by Gloria Tatum

About 50 advocates protested the destruction of the South River forest for the construction of a police training facility called “Cop City” funded by the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF). They gathered at 191 Peachtree Street the headquarters for APF before marching to Bank of America who is one of the corporate funders of APF. Other funders of APF are wealthy individuals and corporations like…

Epoch misinformation by Jack Bernard

“Channels like the Epoch Times are superspreaders of misinformation, and it’s not clear from their Facebook or YouTube presence where they come from.” Deanna Tran, Viet Fact Check Due to the internet and social media platforms, newspapers have been laying off staff for decades. Along with the deterioration of reliable, trusted local and regional newspapers, Americans are increasingly confused as…

The GOP’s War on Women’s Reproductive Rights by Gloria Tatum

Georgia Republicans started this nightmare Taliban-type war on women’s reproductive rights with HB 481, the six-week Heartbeat bill, sponsored by state Rep. Ed Setzler and other Republicans. Texas took Georgia’s “Heartbeat” bill and made it worse with SB 8 that bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected with no exceptions for rape or incest. Then they allowed vigilante bounty hunters to…

West Virginia’s anti-capitalist history by Jack Bernard

My best friend comes from a coal mining family on the West Virginia/Pennsylvania border. But when I asked him, he knew very little about the Blair Mountain uprising that took place 100 years ago, in September 1920. I doubt many West Virginians do, especially the younger ones.  Given the rightward political turn of West Virginians over the past two decades, it is important that they know this…

Florida, DeSantis and Covid – an uneasy relationship by Jack Bernard

It’s hard to believe, but the US was first hit with Covid-19 way back in January of 2020. In four months, it will be 2 years of living with the hell of the deaths and illnesses caused by the virus. Plus, the annoyances of quarantines, mandates and vaccines.  Of course, back in 2020 almost everyone thought that we would be through with Covid by now. But the virus is like the honey badger; it…

Time Capsules and History by David Parker

The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was removed this past week from its pedestal on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, where it had stood since 1890. Once it was gone, the big question was the whereabouts of a time capsule that had reportedly been placed inside the monument’s pedestal. According to contemporary sources, a copper box filled with sixty items, donated by thirty-seven…

Texas Abortion Ban Is An Abuse of the State’s Judiciary by Leon Galis

With the focus on the plight of women seeking abortions in Texas under its recently enacted “heartbeat” law, nobody has noticed that the Texas Legislature also threw state court judges under the bus. I wouldn’t want to be a woman of child-bearing age in Texas right now, but I wouldn’t want to be a state court judge there either.  When five members of the U. S. Supreme Court recently rejected a…

Can You Hate Your Job and Love Labor Day, Part Two by JL Strickland

While I have covered much of this ground before, Labor Day comes every year, and like prostate exams, each new occurrence presents new points of discussion. And, once again, I would like to wish a “Happy Labor Day” to those workers who produce the tsunami of goods swamping America’s retail establishments, not to mention filling our UPS and Amazon delivery trucks. I would like to do this, but,…

You can help stop climate chaos: 25 ways by Tom H. Hastings

There is no serious doubt or debate: anthropogenic (human-effected) activities are driving more hurricanes than ever, more intense killer heat waves than ever in recorded meteorological history, more rising seas, more forest fires, more flooding, and more salt water encroachment into formerly pristine, potable ground water along coastlines. The debate that annoys me most, to be frank, is the “It…

Is Afghanistan FUBAR? It depends who you ask by Wim Laven

I have been teaching political science for more than a decade and politicians do not make my job easy. Rampant dishonesty and misinformation are central to my consternation. Even the claim “both sides” creates a false equivalence obfuscating empirical data and our own eyes with fanciful storytelling. As I prepare for fall classes it is easy to anticipate the questions inquisitive students will…

Rep. Mo Brooks – an embarrassment for Alabama by Jack Bernard

“I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society.”- Rep Mo Brooks (R-Al)  Brooks made this inane statement in regard to a pro-Trump terrorist who was arrested in front of the Capital after he threatened to blow it up (8-19-21). In response, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il), one of the few moderates left in the…

Millions March Nationwide to Protect Voting Rights and Save Democracy by Gloria Tatum

Millions of Americans marched nationwide –  thousands marched in D.C. and hundreds marched in Atlanta to demand that the U.S. Senate pass S.1 For the People’s Act and S.4263 John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to protect voting rights. S.1 will strengthen and protect voting rights, end extreme partisan gerrymandering, shine a light on big and dark money in politics, and clean up the…

GOP – Dead Wrong About Vaccinations by Jack Bernard

Scott Apley was an up-and-coming Galveston GOP shooting star, on the Texas Republican Executive Committee. He was young (45) and aggressive. He wasn’t afraid of those libitards and their scientific experts. But that’s not who he was up against. He was fighting a non-political virus. Covid-19 doesn’t care if you are a liberal or a conservative, a fascist or a socialist. If you are not vaccinated,…

“We have learned from history that we don’t learn from history” by Joseph B. Atkins

My old Army buddy Bob Mayton of Albemarle, North Carolina, is getting a strong sense of déjà vu these days. Every time he turns on the television and sees the thousands of desperate Afghans at the Kabul airport struggling to get out of their country, he remembers what happened in Saigon 46 years ago.  Just as Afghans risk their lives clinging to U.S. airplanes as they lift off, Vietnamese who’d…