Since there has been so much focus on polling during this year’s election cycle, I thought it appropriate to commemorate the birthday of George Gallup, born November 18, 1901 in Jefferson, Iowa. Gallup was a pioneer of survey sampling methods and founded the Gallup public-opinion poll. This is from The Writer’s Almanac of November 18, 2020
There has been so much written about this year’s election. All indications are it really is a pivotal event in this country’s future. How pivotal? I don’t believe any president should be judged until twenty years have passed, but where we go from here will be fascinating to watch. Since we have been putting together
Normally I don’t discuss politics here, and I didn’t watch last night’s Presidential Debate. I usually don’t watch speeches, either. I monitor a half-dozen news feeds, and I figure if anything important happens, I’ll learn about it that way. But what these news sources have told me today has caused an assessment of our current
It’s happened again. The headline reads “A mom called 911 to help her 13-year-old with autism. Utah police shot him” by USA Today’s N’dea Yancey-Bragg. Basically, a mother returned to work for the first time in a year. But her 13-year-old son with Asperger’s syndrome had separation anxiety, which led to a “mental health episode.”
On July 7th, I first wrote about how all lives should matter, but they never have, illustrating my point by listing six instances of massacres of Black communities in this country between 1898 and 1923 (https://www.bobwelbaum-author.com/all-lives-should-matter/). Today, I’m making the point that systemic racism wasn’t always violent, but has been part of the fabric of
Joe Biden has decided to run for President with a woman, Kamala Harris. I remember when John McCain picked Sarah Palin in 2008 as his running mate, and when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. You may have thought of these women as ground-breakers in national politics. But no, it goes back further than
I think most of us would agree that this country turned out pretty well. The Founding Fathers did a really good job of getting us started, with a constitution that has been amended only 27 times in over 232 years of its operation. It works about as well in the modern age as in the
I will admit that being both a regular user of Facebook and a history nerd, plus having a policy of not unfriending anyone, does bring some excitement into one’s life. As such, I have been avidly following the discussions about Black Lives Matter, especially the counterargument that all lives matter. Yes, all lives certainly should.
The coronavirus pandemic is causing a serious reexamination of our lives, including our priorities. At times the need for medical supplies has become so acute we’ve been forced to deal with some very uncomfortable questions. For example, if the curve isn’t flattened and the hospitals are overwhelmed, who gets priority treatment? Should it be the
I know — virtually every day, week and month has a designation, sometimes multiple designations, to commemorate. That’s why I was not surprised when a friend told me today was National Freedom of Information Day (NFID). Why not? This day comes to us courtesy of nationally syndicated radio talk show host Jim Bohannon. Its purpose
