Monthly Archives: November 2011

The Impartiality Fallacy [August 2009 / CCT]

In two big news stories of recent weeks—the Sotomayor confirmation hearings and President Obama’s reaction to the arrest of a black Harvard professor– a key player was a concept: the concept of impartiality. It and its various siblings (“unbiassed”, “neutral”, “objective”) are among the most misleading words in the language. Some years back Sotomayor said, […]

November 30, 2011 – 7:11 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

Tiger Woods: not just another lousy husband [December 2009 / CCT]

Seems like everybody’s got New Year’s resolutions for Tiger Woods. How this bad boy should mend his ways. Get his priorities straight. Drop the swing coach for a marriage councilor. For what doth it profit a man if he is voted Athlete of the Decade but screweth up his marriage? Not since the peccadillos of […]

November 30, 2011 – 7:05 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

New stuff in an old town [April 2009 / CCT]

When summer visitors arrive back in Wellfleet from their winter vacations, they’ll find lots of new stuff in town. We are a good deal spiffier than when they were last here. There’s the new fire station of course. Big and complex, sitting proudly out by Route 6, thumbing its nose at the very idea of […]

November 30, 2011 – 6:58 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

NStar spraying: reasonable doubt [August 2009 / CCT]

It was a classic confrontation. The utility company NStar came to Nauset Regional High School in Eastham August 12 to present the rationale for their scheduled herbicide spraying of the power lines right of way through outer Cape towns. Over 100 citizens showed up to object. There was an array of experts (including reps from […]

November 30, 2011 – 6:52 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

The official end of non-summer [October 2009 / CCT]

There were a lot of big news stories over the summer, but surely one of the most memorable will turn out to be the story of the summer itself, or rather the lack thereof. Probably the average temperature was only a few degrees below normal, but we are sensitive creatures and a small deviation from […]

November 30, 2011 – 6:49 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

Eliminate our moat? Or widen it? [October 2009 / CCT]

The ongoing nuisance of the Sagamore bridge repairs got an interesting reaction from one writer of a letter to this paper: fill in the dumb canal.; it doesn’t serve much of its original purpose anyway and eliminating it would solve the perennial bridge problem. But clearly the canal has long served another function than the […]

November 30, 2011 – 6:45 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

Healthcare too important to be run for profit [June 2009 / CCT]

The scandalous statistics have been widely publicized for many years: U.S.: first in the world in per capita healthcare expenditure, 36th in quality of healthcare ( from 2000, last year the World Health Organization published figures) well down the list from many countries, such as Cuba, we would consider Third World. We also know that […]

November 30, 2011 – 6:39 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Revolution plays to subdued Cape audiences [December 2009 / CCT]

Revolution came to town for a while–in the form of a movie, Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: a Love story.” It spent two or three weeks amongst us and then it was gone. For a revolution it didn’t cause much of a stir. In fact, after seeing it, I was amazed equally by the audacity of this […]

November 30, 2011 – 6:35 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Over-throwing a debilitating self-image [April 2009 / CCT]

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The famous beginning of the Dickens novel about the French revolution applies well enough to our own times. What’s “best” about the current economic mess? For one thing, the refreshing outrage over obscene salaries and bonuses, being reminded that greed is not a […]

November 30, 2011 – 6:29 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Afghanistan: no country for young men and women [November 2009 / CCT]

In this season of thanksgiving, you know what I’m thankful for? I’m thankful my cannon fodder-age son is not inclined to serve his country in Afghanistan. It must be the worst thing in the world to lose a child in a war of dubious necessity . We say about the increasing numbers of casualties returning […]

November 30, 2011 – 6:20 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)