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Newspapers used to keep morgues of old clippings (I suppose the Web has largely replaced them), and I had the feeling of being dusted off, if not revived from the dead, when my name appeared in a New York Times article about the current kerfuffle over Yoga. The Hindu American Foundation is as mad about the “brand” running out as they were a year or two ago, and their claim is just as unfounded. There was bread and wine before the Last Supper, flies and frogs before the curses that Jehovah visited on Egypt and Yoga before Hinduism.
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In the heat of divisive politics, President Obama declared that he was willing to be a one-term President if that’s what it took to get a health care bill passed. It seemed at the time like a show of principle, the kind of thing a mature, adult leader would say rather than a self-serving politician. But in the background, Democrats believed that he would never have to live up to his words. At the time, the country hated Republicans more than ever. The 2008 election had been a rout. When re-election time came, there seemed to be no credible Republican candidate for President in 2012, much less a serious challenger. (more…)

Elections are mirrors of a nation’s consciousness, so it makes sense — sad sense, unfortunately — that the 2010 election reflected fear and confusion.  Many analysts disagree. They call it an election about anger. But anger is the surface expression of deeper anxieties.  Recent polls show that 65% of Americans believe that they will not be able to maintain their current standard of living, around the same number who believe that America is on the decline.  This doesn’t mean that each of these people watched an intelligent balanced news program or read an informed book. Quite the opposite. They were not aware of what was outside themselves. Instead, they were focused almost entirely on what was inside themselves. Since the primary thing that was inside amounted to deep confusion born of fear, that’s how the election turned out.

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