Jeb Bush, the Family Brand and a Bad Case of Political Amnesia

by Nomad

In what many have seen as clear evidence that John Ellis "Jeb" Bush actually plans to throw his hat in the ring for the  2016 presidential race, last week, the former governor of Florida resigned from all of his corporate and non-profit board member positions. That's as subtle a signal as a cannon blast. 

Back in 2008, as his older brother was slinking out of Oval office, many a journalist was commenting how George Bush had dashed ahead of his brother Jeb and effectively blew up the bridge. Rebuilding that bridge was utterly unthinkable given the mess. It was implied that Americans would never ever forget the chaos that eight years of Bush.
 (As we have reported in the past, Jeb's problem has a few major problems that have nothing to do with his brother's incompetence.)

Distorted Priorities: Ad for Moms Demand Action Makes Good Point About Guns

by Nomad

I saw this brilliant ad. Just another example of how powerful special interests have warped our sense of perspective.

The fine print at the bottom reads:

We keep "Little Red Riding Hood" out of schools because of the bottle of wine in her basket."

Here's a little information about the organization, Moms Demand Action. It was founded by Shannon Watts in Indianapolis, on December 15, 2012, the day after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. By the beginning of this year, the advocacy group had grown to 130,000 members and now has chapters in all 50 states.

A New World View: Why Americans Really Need to Get Out More Often

by Nomad

Surveys tell us that fewer Americans are traveling abroad anymore. There are, of course, a good reasons why people would prefer to stay home, However, as country with a record of intervening in other nations, it is strange how incurious and uninformed so Americans have become about the rest of the planet.

How does our stay-at-home attitude influence our ideas about the rest of the world? Has it made us more arrogant and more ignorant?

Mark Twain, the travel writer, once said

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” 

For citizens of a nation with so many imperial ambitions, it amazes me how few Americans actually have ever been abroad.
That's a kind of a pity too. In comparison to a lot of other nationalities, average Americans are not bad ambassadors for their country.

In fact, 35 per cent of all Americans admit that they do not even own a passport and more than half - 54% - have never traveled outside the U.S.

According to one survey of over 2000 citizens,  41 per cent of travelers who have never been abroad feel that everything worth visiting is in the U.S.
About half of the respondents said that if they had the money, they would like to travel to other countries while about 26% said they would rather not go abroad.