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Mary Lyon is a veteran broadcaster ad five-time Golden Mike Award winner, who has anchored, reported, and written for the Associated Press Radio Network, NBC Radio "The Source," and many Los Angeles-area stations including KRTH-FM/AM, KLOS-FM, KFWB-AM, and KTLA-TV, and occasional media analyst for ABC Radio News. She began her career as a liberal activist with the Student Coalition for Humphrey/Muskie in 1968, and helped spearhead a regional campaign, "The Power 18," to win the right to vote for 18-year-olds. She remains an advocate for liberal causes, responsibility and accountability in media, environmental education and support of the arts for children, and green living. In addition to OpEdNews, Mary writes for Democrats.us, World News Trust, and WeDemocrats.org's "We! The People" webzine. Mary is also a parenting expert, having written and illustrated the book "The Frazzled Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood."
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 30, 2008 I Helped Pay for That, Too, Senator McCain
The half-hour Obama video brings out the worst in John McCain, as he leaps to suspect the worst in many of us.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 31, 2008 The "Bush Effect" - Hopefully for a Third and LAST Time
The spinners are out in furious force to rewrite George W. Bush's White House history. But all you have to do is think back, and make a list, to know the full, real, and bitter truth.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 28, 2009 The Meaning of the Spector Switch
There's a lot more behind the leap Arlen Spector just took across party lines. And that leap spans a lot more than just the proverbial center aisle.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 5, 2007 The Giver of Pain and Delight
The original "Star Trek" series had an episode called "Spock's Brain" - that boasts an exquisitely descriptive line that's stuck in my brain for decades. The episode explored one of those male-versus-female societal structures in which the men, savage, near-Troglodyte types, spoke of the dominant opposite sex as "the givers of pain and delight." One of those hapless men, lo these many years later, is Rudy Giuliani.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 27, 2008 Whose Opening Advantage?
The first presidential debate draws little blood. But everybody came away with something - especially Barack Obama
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Mahmoud and Me
The controversial visit of Iran's president shines a glaring light on an overriding crisis of trust - and what we simply have to find a way to get beyond.
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, October 3, 2008 Advantage Biden
Boy meets girl at the Vice Presidential debate. But while the guy was a gentleman, the gal was no lady.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, November 9, 2007 The Meaning of America
I think maybe it's time to start asking the following question: What have we come to? Who do we think we are as Americans, here and now, in early November, 2007? We've got a year before we collectively express ourselves via the ballot box. So who are we, anymore?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 19, 2007 It Just Takes ONE
I was seriously thinking of writing this column about a crisis of conscience: somebody – anybody – tell me why I should bother being a Democrat anymore. The past several weeks have been almost literally hair-tearing. Our hesitancy about the confirmation of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General was recently validated when he stonewalled efforts to investigate the deliberate destruction of CIA torture tapes...
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 10, 2009 What Still Ails America
Dr. Obama has made an emergency House (and Senate) call. But will it be enough to lift health care reform off the critical list?
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, May 11, 2007 ALL These People Scare Me
The climate of fear and loathing in this country has become like a door -- that now, at long last, is swinging both ways.
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 27, 2007 "And You're Okay with This?"
There simply MUST come a time when even Congress says Dick Cheney has gone too far.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 23, 2007 Am I Laughing or Crying? Barrump-bump!
The only cutting edges present at the 2007 White House Correspondents Association dinner were with the forks and spoons at each place setting. Sadly enough, the association itself remains a group of disgracefully dull blades.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 28, 2007 Why we MUST Impeach - A Second Look
The courage of Dennis Kucinich should hit all of us, especially our Congress, directly in the conscience. IMPEACHMENT isn't just an option. It's an urgent necessity.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 4, 2007 Everything But the Plastic Turkey
Bush's latest surprise visit to Iraq, like the handful of others before it, was hardly a reflection of the truth over there. But do you think most of America will catch on?
SHARE Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Three Little Words
Being big enough and honest enough to admit you made a mistake has become a presidential act. Why can't the Republicans try it for themselves?
SHARE Wednesday, May 30, 2007 I STILL Stand with Cindy
Cindy Sheehan's anguish should be our own. But her withdrawal from the anti-war frontlines should not be.
SHARE Friday, August 10, 2007 Yet Another Bridge Too Far
The bridge disaster in Minneapolis should finally make us face the bridge we really have to repair. There is another bridge that needs crossing. And it's that unmentionable bridge, that fearsome Bridge-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, The Bridge WAY Too Far, especially for America's loyal, patriotic CONservatives. They fear to tread that way even more than they shrink from accountability.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 16, 2007 What Paris Means
Is justice blind - or merely blonde? If it can happen to Paris Hilton, it should happen to Scooter Libby and his GOP scofflaw friends, also.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 25, 2009 A Tale of Two Speeches
Nothing could be more glaring than to compare President Obama's speech with Governor Jindal's Republican response. It's no wonder America has cast its lot with the Dems.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 7, 2007 Undebatably Yours
When is just about any Democrat acceptable? When they're up against just about any Republican.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 18, 2008 The Benediction of Big Al
Al Gore has now endorsed Barack Obama. If that's the best we can get, I'll take it.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 25, 2008 The G in GOP Stands for Ghoul
Didn't somebody somewhere awhile back talk about fear itself as being the only thing we had to fear? What happened???
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 4, 2007 The Stain on McCain
John McCain's foolish, ill-advised, misguided loyalty to George W. Bush has put him on a "Straight-Talk Express" straight to Hell.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 30, 2008 I Dreamed I Had a Bull's-Eye on My Back
Actions, and reactions, have consequences. The UUC shootings in Tennessee prove that anti-liberal extremists can be prodded - by propaganda - into murder.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Talking a Tragedy to Death
In the aftermath of a national nightmare, sometimes the only solace available can be found around the watercooler.
SHARE Tuesday, October 2, 2007 Rush to Judgment (I Hope)
One of the nation's leading chickenhawks may have started a war he can't win.
SHARE Tuesday, May 22, 2007 "Texas Poled 'Em"
There's only one way to play the game with George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales and friends. And that is to refuse to play in the first place.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 9, 2007 The Chastening
The lunatics are leaving the White House asylum. And as they go, they leave all blame, acceptance of responsibility, or true contrition to somebody else.
SHARE Friday, June 8, 2007 Undebatably Yours, Revisited
If the Democrats can cave, so can I So much for leaving the GOP debaters on "ignore"...
SHARE Wednesday, July 4, 2007 Scooter and the Tipping Points
The latest outrage over Scooter Libby MAY have been the "last straw." But whose? Ours, Congress,' or Bush's?
SHARE Monday, August 25, 2008 Tears and Bookends
The Democratic National Convention opens with cheers and tears, and a welcome new look at Michelle Obama.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 16, 2007 Gore's Not the Only One Who Won
Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize is a great victory for him, and a great validation for the millions who always believed in him.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 11, 2007 Leave 'Em Wanting Moore
It takes a rumpled but wide-awake media outsider to teach a lesson that the well-coifed, best-dressed media insiders chose to sleep through.
SHARE Tuesday, October 23, 2007 Things We Saved in the Fire
Democratic backbone these days resembles the smoldering wreckage on so many Southern California hillsides. Except in one case.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 31, 2007 When "Brownie" Meets "Jeffie"
As a retired journalist, let me just say – I've gotta hand it to these people. As my late mother would have said, "they have more nerve than the guy who ate the first oyster." "They" in this case are our friends at the "new-and-improved" FEMA.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 7, 2007 The Bridge Too Far
The Minneapolis bridge isn't the only bridge that's broken. The bridge we have to build, as Americans, is that which links tax revenue to serving the greater public good.
SHARE Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Why Alberto Gonzales Did a "Good" Job
George W. Bush has occasional accidents of honesty. The latest lapse occurred with his assessment of the legacy of Alberto Gonzales.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 28, 2007 The Spoiled Sports
See how they run - with their ball, straight back home. The separate decisions by Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott and ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert to bail out early from Capitol Hill has left me with visions of hot kitchens dancing in my head. Too hot, apparently, for either of these gents. Why am I not surprised?
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 18, 2007 A Very Vitter Pill
The Perils of the Pecadillo, or how the DC Madam's latest goat endangered his Senate career, his reputation, his partisan pals, and his Significant Other Woman.
SHARE Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Shock Treatment
Whether dissent is put down through cold shoulder or hot electric jabs, the frustration remains the same. Many of us are STILL not being heard.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 14, 2007 All Roads Still Lead to Rove
"Bush's Brain" REALLY saying sayonara? I wouldn't bet the house (or the White House) on it.
SHARE Friday, November 23, 2007 Who's the Turkey Now?
I knew this would happen. On this week when most of America sits down to a bounteous turkey dinner, some chickens have started coming home to roost. And the taste is tender and juicy indeed.
Months ago, mid-gossip, I wrote on one of my favorite progressive political blog/chat sites that I thought we should all be keeping our eyes peeled for the "I Didn't Do It" books.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 8, 2007 St. Patrick and the Snakes
My reaction to the "fibby libby" verdicts, AND to the reactions from others. The ultimate conclusion to this trial will only be satisfactory if the many questions left unanswered by Patrick Fitzgerald's efforts are finally addressed.
SHARE Saturday, March 17, 2007 Torturing Alberto
Perhaps with the week he's been having, Alberto Gonzales feels like the guy with the hood and the wires attached to his fingers. And no wonder.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 11, 2007 Something Wicked This Way Came
September 11th 2007 has only added insult to the injury of six years ago, as the reputation of yet another general becomes the latest casualty in the "War on Terror."