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Salem-News.com Articles written by Daniel Johnson
| Next PageAmerica: Death by Republican
by Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive EditorThe GOP has brought America, a once proud nation, to its knees and so many millions of Republican supporters don't understand how, for the last thirty years or so they have been voting against their own best interests and the interests of the nation they claim to love.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Congressman Louie Gohmert from northeast Texas told a House hearing that the trans-Alaska oil pipeline improved the sex lives of some wild animals.
“When the caribou want to go on a date,” he said, “they invite each other to head over to the pipeline.”
Untied States of America
Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive EditorStates' Rights are a recipe for chaos and eventual tyranny.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Despite the Constitution, not all Americans are equal. The rights you enjoy—or don’t enjoy—depend on where you live.
Colorado has decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. Cross into Wyoming and you can get a year in prison. Maryland has repealed the death penalty. Across the border in Delaware there are 17 inmates on death row, awaiting lethal injection.
Is the Second Amendment Even Still Real?
by Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive Editor"Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right." (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Madison September 6, 1789)
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
It is unusual for gun rights to be included in a constitution.
In an historical study of constitutions, only 15 constitutions in 9 countries ever included an explicit right to bear arms.
Who Elected the NRA? You?
by Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive EditorAmerican culture does not give women much more protection or respect than the Taliban.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Last year, Stephanie Holten obtained a temporary order for protection from her ex-husband Corey Holten, who had threatened to kill her if her new boyfriend “gets near my kids.” She wrote on the form: “He owns guns, I am scared.”
The judge prohibited him from going within two blocks of her house. What the judge did not do was require him to do was surrender his guns. Twelve hours later he was outside her home...
Hey, America! Revolution, Civil War or Tyranny--Take your pick!
Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive EditorAmerica has moved backward over the last half century. There is now representation without taxation, the opposite of the nation's founding philosophy.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
I read a comment to a news story recently:
"Every one of ‘We The People’ is an equal owner in this thing we call the US of A. The land, the water, the sky. The government is our family business."
Capitalism`s Children
by Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive EditorChildren are the demographic most heavily targeted by advertisers and are society's most vulnerable members.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
While the U.S. has only 4.5% of the world’s population, America’s children consume 45% of global toy production. Sales to the four- to twelve-year-old market was $6.1 billion in 1989.
Today, it’s more like $30 billion, an increase of nearly 500%. Teen spending is even greater—$170 billion/year.
Einstein on Israel
by Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive Editor"As far as my experience goes, [the Jews] are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
In late 1953, Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind sent his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt to Albert Einstein and asked for comments.
On January 3, 1954, Einstein replied in a letter that until recently was little known.
The Genesis of America`s Savage Winner-Take-All Society
by Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive EditorEven if you're comfortable, you're not one of the "winners". You've just been lucky enough to find a perch in the expanding monarchical/serf society. Economic security? You could be decimated in a nanosecond! Think of those "rich people" who had millions invested with Bernie Madoff and who were suddenly impoverished. It can happen to you without warning.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
“Capitalism is the best system ever devised,” said former President George W. Bush, speaking to the right-wing Manhattan Institute. But, capitalism is a winner-take-all system and how it was “devised” is a heretofore uncolligated horror story.
The Bill Gates Fantasy
by Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive EditorDoes Bill Gates deserve his fortune? Do the Walton offspring deserve to be billionaires? Do the children living in poverty in the ghetto deserve to grow up poor?
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
There are two main ways to become really rich. The first involves luck—e.g. win a big lottery. The second involves being born on third base…hmmm…also luck. Is this a contradiction? Let us explore further.
The richest person in the world today, outside of middle-eastern autocrats, is William Henry "Bill" Gates III, with a net worth in the ethereal neighborhood of $66 billion.
Report From the Pit of Hell
by Daniel Johnson, Deputy Executive EditorTens of millions of Americans are no farther advanced than Bedouins of five thousand years ago trekking across the desert on their camels. And these people are allowed to vote!
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Over the years, a few commenters have asked why I hate America. It’s not hate or even dislike.
It’s just that since Americans have walked on the moon and gave up on the exploration, that I’ve felt a profound disrespect for American society overall.
Daniel Johnson - Canada
Deputy Executive Editor, Salem-News.com
Email: DanielJohnson@telus.net
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, as a teenager, Daniel Johnson aspired to be a writer. Always a voracious reader, he reads more books in a month than many people read in a lifetime. He knew early that in order to be a writer, you have to be a reader.
Another early bit of self-knowledge was that writers need experience. So, in the first seven years after high school he worked at 42 different jobs ranging from management trainee in a bank (four branches in three cities), inside and outside jobs at a railroad (in two cities), then A & W, factories and assembly lines, driving cabs (three different companies), collection agent, a variety of office jobs, John Howard Society, crisis counsellor at an emergency shelter, salesman in a variety of industries (building supplies, used cars, photocopy machines)and on and on. You get the picture.
In 1968, he was between jobs and eligible for unemployment benefits, so he decided to take the winter off and just write. The epiphany there, he said, was that after about two weeks, “I realized I had nothing to say.” So back to regular work.
He has always been concerned about fairness in the world and the plight of the underprivileged/underdog. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that he understood where that motivation came from. Diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) he researched the topic and, among others, read a book Scattered Minds by Dr. Gabor Maté, an ADD person himself. Maté wrote: "[A] feeling of duty toward the whole world is not limited to ADD but is typical of it. No one with ADD is without it."
That explains his motivation. Hard-wired.
As a professional writer he sold his first paid article in 1974 and, while employed at other jobs, started selling a few pieces in assorted places. He created his first journalism gig. In the late 1970s, when the world was recovering from a recession, the Canadian federal government had a job creation program where, if an employer created a new job, the government would pay part of the wage for the first year or two. The local weekly paper was growing, so he approached the publisher and said this was an opportunity for him to hire a new reporter. The publisher had been thinking along those lines but cost was a factor. No longer.
Over the next 15 years, Daniel eked out a living as a writer doing, among other things, national writing and both radio and TV broadcasting for the CBC, Maclean’s (the national newsmagazine) and a host of smaller publications. Interweaved throughout this period was soul-killing corporate and public relations writing.
It was through the 1960s and 1970s that he got his university experience. In his first year at the University of Calgary, he majored in psychology/mathematics; in his second year he switched to physics/mathematics. He then learned of an independent study program at the University of Lethbridge where he attended the next two years, studying philosophy and economics. In the end he attended university over nine years (four full time) but never qualified for a degree because he didn't have the right number of courses in any particular field.
In 1990 he published his first (and so far, only) book: Practical History: A guide to Will and Ariel Durant’s “The Story of Civilization” (Polymath Press, Calgary)
Newly appointed as the Deputy Executive Editor in August 2011, he has been writing exclusively for Salem-News.com since March 2009 and, as of summer 2011, has published more than 160 stories.
He continues to work on a second book which he began in 1998.
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