tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87172516518502641072011-11-27T19:17:44.501-05:00Social, cultural, and political commentary, humor, and anything else that occurs to me.John P Hewitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07631553689624586872noreply@blogger.comBlogger71100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8717251651850264107.post-84857967332924378582011-01-09T16:17:00.000-05:002011-01-09T16:17:27.620-05:00

     Shortly after news broke that Representative Gabby Giffords had been shot in Tucson, the cable news talking heads were on the telephone in search of explanations from psychologists and psychiatrists. Wolf Blitzer, for example, wanted to know what kind of person would commit such a crime, and the California based forensic psychologist he interviewed was glad to talk about schizophrenia and

John P Hewitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07631553689624586872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8717251651850264107.post-87064887761154514672010-07-03T10:39:00.001-04:002010-07-09T08:46:22.620-04:00

I last set foot on terra Arizona on April 29, 2010 at a rest area on Interstate 10 near the summit of Texas Canyon, between Benson and Willcox. Earlier that morning I had maneuvered our 26 foot Penske rental truck out our 175 foot driveway and onto a dirt road that led to pavement and a four-day journey to our new home in Ohio. Myrna and I had first seen that dirt road fifteen years

John P Hewitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07631553689624586872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8717251651850264107.post-2662941490649759092009-11-23T11:22:00.001-05:002009-11-23T11:23:43.861-05:00

In this festive season of health care reform, global warming debate, Obama-ridiculing, and Palin-watching, pundits constitute a growing threat to public decency, democracy, the economy, world peace, and my mental health. This problem has a solution: Assemble the newspaper columnists, cable news talking heads, radio talk show hosts, bloggers, and their ilk — all of them — and hold them

John P Hewitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07631553689624586872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8717251651850264107.post-46677140792120682092009-08-04T10:18:00.002-04:002009-08-04T10:22:29.669-04:00

Congressman Bill Posey’s (R, Fla) proposal to require Presidential candidates to submit proof of citizenship seems to be gaining steam now that eleven of his fellow House members have signed on as co-birthers. It’s a promising bill, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. As Rep. Posey points out, we require documentation for all kinds of things in this country. Apply for a passport, a driver’s

John P Hewitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07631553689624586872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8717251651850264107.post-45257414857011455472009-08-01T12:46:00.000-04:002009-08-01T12:47:34.835-04:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about the right wing crazies lately — the folks who are convinced that global warming is a myth, that President Obama isn’t a citizen, or that the government should keep it’s hands off Medicare. How did they become the base of the GOP? Why are there so many of them? What rock did they crawl out from under? The explanation, it turns out, is genetic. They cavort in a

John P Hewitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07631553689624586872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8717251651850264107.post-43011620332075184692009-07-30T12:46:00.006-04:002009-07-30T17:42:45.130-04:00

For several years the wanton display of religious symbols has been making me crazy, and lately I’ve been obsessing about it. On a recent cross-country trip, hundreds of Indiana cars with “In God We Trust” emblazoned on their license plates left me in their 80 mph dust. Shortly before last Christmas a federal judge enjoined South Carolina from producing a license plate, which the state

John P Hewitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07631553689624586872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8717251651850264107.post-66600994657393722552009-07-30T09:36:00.003-04:002009-07-30T17:40:46.770-04:00

For the last thirty years narcissism (e.g. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, 1978; Jean Twenge, The Narcissism Epidemic, 2009) has been an off and on staple of American cultural criticism. The publication of books on the topic is followed by a flurry of attention, at first promoted by publishers and then spreading virally through the media. In “Broadsheet” (Salon, July 27, 2009)

John P Hewitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07631553689624586872noreply@blogger.com0