Feature Articles

(4/8/2022) Origins of Pres. Nixon’s (National Lampoon) “Admissions Speech” (by Tom Ersin) Since buying the record in the mid-’70s, I’ve played this “Admissions Speech” track for hundreds of friends, acquaintances, and unwilling family members. It is a classic that lives on in my world because it’s everything people wanted from Nixon but never got. You might call it the exposé of that era’s “big lie,” comparable to Donald Trump saying today: “I admit I lost the election fair and square. But psychologically I cannot accept loss, and I needed the continuing presidential immunity to avoid prosecution and incarceration. Yes, I did try to subvert American democracy to stay in power.”

(7/1/2017) So — You’re Still Smoking? (by Tom Ersin) “Don’t forget, you’re smoking for two now.” This is the old wry twist on the exhortation of pregnant women to remember they’re eating for two. “Eating for two” is a reminder to the expectant mother that she is now making tectonic choices — about what she puts or doesn’t put into her body — that will affect an innocent, vulnerable second party for its entire lifetime. In Australia, the caption “Don’t forget, you’re smoking for two now” might be accompanied by photos of mother and fetus with matching hypopharyngeal tongue cancer, emphysemic lung tissue, or gangrenous feet.

(2/15/2012) You’re Like a Steve Jobs — Without all That Genius Baggage (by Tom Ersin) In my early personal computer years, I had many co-workers and a boss who were Mac fanatics. To them, Apple (who developed the Macintosh computer in 1984) was king. They were Apple computer loyalists to a fault, starting with the Apple II in the late-1970s. They schooled me on the evils of Bill Gates and his company: “Microsoft was a monopoly.” “Macs don’t need drivers” (you don’t wanna know). “Bill Gates stole ‘windows’ from Apple.” Apparently, per the Mac fanatics, Steve Jobs was nice enough to invite Bill to the Apple facilities in the early ‘80s to see what they were up to. Next thing you know, Bill “invents” the Windows Operating System. OK. I never checked this out, but I do know that in 1988, Apple sued Microsoft — and lost — over, among other things, copyright infringement of the windows interface idea. Oh, and before I got the Mac, I learned never to ask my fanatics any computer questions. “We don’t know anything about PCs. If you want our help with computers, get a Mac.” OK..

(8/1/2011) Rise of Motown Records (by Tom Ersin) With that aim, Gordy built one of the largest black entertainment conglomerates in American business history. No. He built one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in American history. Berry Gordy is reminiscent of other American pioneering entrepreneurs who built their business and their success from just a few dollars, a few good ideas, and a lot of ambition. Think Henry Ford, a predecessor. Think Ray Kroc (McDonald’s), a contemporary. Both of these men took a known innovation in business and manufacturing — the division of labor, born a century or so before their times — and adapted it to their product.

(10/9/2010) White House Response to the Watergate Crisis (by Tom Ersin) The second break-in of the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel in 1972 and the Nixon administration’s attempts to cover it up have been documented ad infinitum. History has shown that Richard Nixon’s organization of first- and second-tier advisers and managers was essentially corrupt long before the GEMSTONE project (a suite of illegal plans) was approved earlier that year by Jeb Magruder, aide to Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman. But its members were not born that way, and the organization did not start out that way.

(8/7/2010) Ask Jesus: A True Culture of Life (by Tom Ersin) Last week Jesus had so much to say about faith versus works that our guest host, Laurie Crusades, never got to ask her original burning question: If Jesus were a voter in today’s political climate, would He be a Democrat or a Republican? Did he support Mitt Romney or Barack Obama? Many of our viewers emailed to say they liked Laurie and felt she did a good job of speaking for Christian, Main Street America. So we brought her back.

(6/4/2010) Untold Story of Women’s Suffrage (by Tom Ersin) Throughout the history of the women’s suffrage movement, there have been opposing forces wanting the same ends but disagreeing about the means. In the early years, the more conservative American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) and the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), both formed in 1869, were often in bitter dispute about how to achieve their mutual goal.

(7/14/2009) U.S. Must Talk to Rogue Governments — Without Preconditions (by Tom Ersin) In his first six months in office, President Obama has begun planning talks with certain so-called rogue governments: those that have engaged in hostile behavior toward the United States and other free-world countries. The George W. Bush administration consistently refused to communicate with rogue governments unless they stopped their rogueing. After eight years of that swimmingly successful policy, the Taliban has come to represent a Middle Eastern beacon of Jeffersonian democracy. Iran and North Korea have become founding members of the Antithesis of Evil.

(7/4/2009) Temporary Corporate Nationalization (by Tom Ersin) Obviously the previous excerpt is from a fictitious newspaper article. But if President Obama’s stimulus package, which includes the temporary corporate nationalization (TCN) of certain U.S. companies, were to be derailed, the above scenario is a real possibility. International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in February that the rollout of stimulus packages must be accelerated to avert a “repeat of the Great Depression.” At the end of last year, 60% of Americans said, in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, that a depression is likely. The poll characterized depression as exhibiting common elements of the “economic pain of the 1930s: 25% unemployment rate; widespread bank failures; and millions of Americans homeless and unable to feed their families.”

(1/25/2009) Bush-Cheney False Legal Justification of Torture (by Tom Ersin) Two days ago, newly inaugurated President Barack Obama reestablished a fundamental American value, one that even John McCain vehemently agrees with: Torture, no matter how you euphemize it, is wrong, and we should never use it. In embarrassing contrast, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lamely defended the Bush-Cheney “enhanced interrogation techniques” by saying in 2005, “We are not going to torture, period, … [but] I’m not going to get into a discussion about specific methods of questioning people.”