By Jim Hoover In the last ranking in 2000, The World Health Organization (WHO) has named the French health care system the best in the world. Who ranked the U.S. 37th, close behind Costa Rica, Dominica, and Chile. Statistics supporting this ranking seem to persist today. If you remove…
By Jim Hoover In August of 2011 at the Hollywood Bowl, Pianist Yuja Wang, the 24-year-old Chinese soloist, struck many glorious chords on the piano, chords that Sergei Rachmaninoff composed for his first tour of the United States as a pianist in 1909. Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto is considered by…
By: Jim Hoover Matt Taibbi in Griftopia does an effective job of tracing the myriad of ways average Americans have been screwed by a wide network of what he calls grifters, or swindlers, in a confidence game that was blessed by government officials in all branches and at most…
Terrorism is an ideology that has been around since time immemorial and has been used to topple political leaders, steal land and resources, and enslave people for profit. It is also morally bankrupt for these specific reasons: women and children are the usual victims of terrorism, terrorism serves no…
By Jim Hoover Political campaigns -- long, cumbersome, intrinsically boring, and wordy – are covered by the media and bloggers, both having the job of making money first, and if their coverage informs the public, that’s an accident. Online especially, all media, including bloggers, thrust with titillating verbal cuts…
By Jim Hoover Republicans are trying to sabotage the economy for political gain. This is the only conclusion we can draw to explain Republican unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats cave to their demands of huge spending cuts. Even worse, Obama will be complicit in this sabotage…
Dear Ms. Doe, I thought I should take a moment to write you about your husband, for there are a few things I think you need to know about him. Have you noticed lately how handsome he is? He is aging quite nicely even if he is carrying a…
By Jim Hoover If you think that our most influential institutions have not been compromised by the power elite’s money, you only need to look at the Standard and Poor (S&P) credit-rating agency that just downgraded the US’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. You would have to be…
By Jim Hoover Sadly, it is true. Plutocrats are winning the war against the people. And, yes, we should call it a war. Unlike the term’s use in other contexts (war on drugs, for example), it actually is a period of armed conflict between groups: the interests of the…
I feel that we Christians too often fail in these ten ways: 1. Too much money. “Wealthy Christian” should be an oxymoron. In Luke 12:33, Jesus says, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” At Matthew 19:21, he says, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your…