TheNextReport

If there was any doubt about the cynicism and arrogance of the leadership of the Republican party, it was in plain sight last week in the congressional battle over the student loan interest rate. That rate, now 3.4 percent, is scheduled to increase to 6.8 percent at the beginning of July. Both Democrats and Republicans promised to intervene with legislation aimed at preventing the increase, but they soon began arguing about how it will be paid for. In a classic example of the moral bankruptcy of their politics, the GOP, led by Speaker of the House John Boehner, proposed that funds be taken from the Prevention and Public Health Fund -- the part of President Obama’s healthcare law that would support preventative medicine, such as mammogram screening and other procedures. Never mind that Republican leaders have called for the repeal of the entire healthcare law and have a motion to that effect before the Supreme Court. The leaders of the GOP, stung by previous charges that they had been...

Goodnight Brother Helm, Wherever You Are It's a season of politics in America, a time when carnival barkers and blow-dried charlatans stroll The Great White Way; I desperately look for something real and all I can think about is The Band and the passing of Levon Helm. There are not many artists who can sum up what it really means to be an American. I knew that The Band's music was special the first time that I heard them. This was no ordinary rock n roll; no ordinary country music; this was no run-of-the-mill R&B; not your average cake-walkin dixieland, or ordinary Cajun fiddle tunes -- it was all of them, a unique expression of our American identity. And there in the middle of it all was Levon, the driv'n wheel, the beating heart, the dirt farmer at the plough, telling tales of minstrels and medicine men, of ordinary folks, speaking the truth. It is not surprising that what drew many to the sound of The Band was its spirituality,its gris-gris, born of days with D...

Hoyt and the Goose The adjustments an American living in France must make to maintain a state of basic contentment can at first seem considerable. For example, getting used to the fact that stores, pharmacies, gas stations, post offices, banks, supermarkets, doctors offices and just about everything else are closed during lunch can seem impossible. Once it is understood, however, that lunch in France is not a meal but a form of universal worship, that the French table is in fact an altar, resigning oneself to the inaccessibility of certain necessities becomes possible. Sports is another matter. As with most American males, I am at times possessed by uncontrollable thoughts of baseball, football and basketball. Having grown up in New York in the 60s, various sports legends – from the Babe to the Mick, from Y.A. to Earl the Pearl, from A-Rod to Eli — composed a portable pantheon, a subconscious hall of fame transported from childhood to adulthood. The pre-occupation was in the genes....