I've thought a lot about issues of war since I was a teen. I'm not a pacifist, but I do believe that this country has gotten into too many unnecessary wars. Like most people my age, my views on war were heavily influenced by the Vietnam War, seeing how it affected the older generation and the Vietnam veterans.

I'm not sure how I got on their email list, but over the past couple of months I've been receiving emails from MoveOn, a progressive Democratic web organization that was started by Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs

WHEN: February 22, 2010, 6:30 P.M.
WHERE: SUNY Albany Ballroom, Campus Center BIdg. Albany NY
WHAT: An evening of theater, comedy, poetry, dance
WHO: Produced by Hillel and the Muslim Student Assn.

WHEN: January 30, 2010 1:00
WHERE: WAMC Auditorium
WHAT: Progressives and Libertarian Public Dialogue on Climate Change

Ever since the special elections where Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, I've been disappointed and a bit angry at the results. As a Democrat, though, I have to admit that we Democrats have only ourselves to blame. Ever since conservative activists made a lot of noise at the town hall meetings in August, these conservatives have been able to control the terms of the debate.

Response to the earthquake ranges from a wave of compassion to Pat Robertson's theological argument that a comparison of the fortunes of the Dominican Republic and Haiti can be explained by a voudou ceremony 200 years ago. Pat has made similar arguments before and it is all too easy to dismiss his rants.

In San Francisco this January, a federal trial is taking place to argue the legality of Proposition 8, a proposition that was passed in the California election in 2008 to ban gay marriage. Chief U.S.