Sandy Andina

I was invited to join the Facebook group "Those Who Protest at Military Funerals are the Scum of the Earth."  Remembering those awful images of the extremist pseudo-"evangelical" hate groups who chose certain military funerals last year at which to…

Well, I've been blathering on for weeks about the need for both teabaggers and disaffected/dosappointed independents to take refresher courses in basic civics and history before as a prerequisite for being qualified to lay into Obama and the Democratic Congressional…

Today was the opening of the Tea Party Convention in Nashville, which is fueled by anger and fear, and the willingness of the angry and fearful to believe without question the catchphrases that the organizers and reactionary so-called "conservatives" are …

Yeah, that's a pun on a rustic but, well, expressive,  expression.  (And you members of the grammar police--I know that when one is queried by a pollster he or she is ASKED.  Give me a little credit for knowing the…

Obama gave a pretty good speech tonight--hit the GOP and conservative Dem Senators harder than I'd expected for (respectively) their obstructionism and self-interest, as well as calling out the Court for its insane decisionof last week, and stopping just short…

To say that the political events of the past year, which started out so promising, have turned out to be baffling, exasperating and discouraging would be like saying water is wet.   Sadly, when it comes to either end of the…

Please go to www.doctorswithoutborders.org to donate what you can for emergency medical relief services for Haiti. No established medical facilities remain intact--hospitals have been destroyed.  Your donation will be appreciated immeasurably, and the karma goes without saying.  (If you so…

Don't worry--I'm not turning pyromaniac on you. But Friday was the last night of Hanukkah.  Now, I'd been pretty good about lighting the right number of bulbs in the electric Menorah in the front room window each successive night (and…

Actually, that's not quite true--I claim three hometowns: Brooklyn, where I was born and raised; Seattle, where I basically became a "real" grownup; and Chicago, where a couple became a family and where I put down roots over 30 years…

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah--as we light that first candle (or for safety's sake, screw in that first lightbulb), so begins 2009's season of hope and light.  David Brooks (not normally one of my favorite columnists, given his…

Okay. I'll fess up and admit I stole that title from a blog-analysis section of today's New York Times.  But it's been the elephant in the room of political discourse for months now. 

At the start of the Obama Presidency…