Tag Archives: politics

From time to time, Mark Jamison or myself would feature articles from the Save the Post Office blog as authored by Steve Hutkins, a literature professor who teaches “place studies” at the Gallatin School of New York University. Mark Jamison a retired Postmaster for a small town in North Carolina would often write there also. This particular post was featured in October of 2016. Where FedeEx, UPS, DHL or other services do not go, the US Postman still does...

Interesting development last week, Missouri’s state Legislature decided a minimum wage of $10/hour is a hardship for business and too much for Labor. This comes after the MSC sided with St. Louis and Kansas City in setting a minimum wage of $10.10/hour. The Republican legislature decided differently and passed legislation to prevent local communities from establishing minimum wage above what the state mandates. “ Thousands of workers in St. Louis will...

I met Cathy in Cambridge when she spoke at MIT a few years ago. This is  re-posted from Naked Capitalism.  Cathy’s whole TED Talk can be watched after the fold. Data Scientist Cathy O’Neil: “Algorithms Are Opinions Embedded in Code” Cathy O’Neil has a PhD in mathematics from Harvard and is the author of the best seller Weapons of Math Destruction. She is also involved in Occupy Wall Street. In this TED talk, she describes how algorithms routinely...

Pres. Trump decides on pardoning Sheriff Joe for all of his community service work in Maricopa County Arizona. What an achievement for a man who can be a racist, defy a Federal Court, and gain the support of a US Pres.

Reports of Obamacare’s death are greatly exaggerated: All counties to be covered for 2018 Obamacare has now obtained an insurer for every county in the country, defying Republican claims that the program is collapsing. As reported by The Hill, “At one point or another over the past year, more than 80 counties have been at risk of having no ObamaCare insurer on the exchanges in 2018.” On Thursday (Aug. 24), the last “bare” county, in Ohio, was covered by...

Donald Trump seems to be missing some sort of a regulator that prevents him from simply saying what temporarily happens to be on his mind. That made it inevitable that he would treat his audience to a regular stream of faux pas. However, I think both the degree and severity of the mess may be diminished going forward. The reason has to do with how the Trump administration came into being. Simply put, unlike most candidates, he actually beat both major...

The Colfax Massacre occurred during Reconstruction when Republicans, many of whom were black, won the election. The White League and kukluxklan joined forces to take back the Parish Court House. 300 armed white militia faced black and white defenders of the court house. When James Hadnot was shot by his own men, the attackers started to shoot the black defenders who had surrendered. 48 were killed that day and the white militia turned its anger on the...

On the erection of Confederate memorials: in which I have to get this off my chest Below is a photograph of the World War Two Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Keep it in the back of your mind. I’ll return to it. I am a data nerd, and leaping to conclusions about data is a pet peeve of mine. I really hate it when anyone, and particularly my own side, falls for groupthink, jumping to instant conclusions which then become the only...

Newspaper Editorial Cartoonists are having a field day with Donald Trump’s comments condoning the Charlottesville’s supremacists rioting, killing one person, and injuring many more. Living his father’s legacy of racism and supporting ku klux klan. Trump 2015: “ My legacy has its roots in my father’s legacy.” Trump’s staff is complaining Trump went rogue and David Duke kkk member is applauding. If Trump finds himself alone as more people abandon the...