“I know how much is enough,” a friend of mine once said to me. “It’s just a little more than you have right now.”
It has become increasingly clear that many Americans no longer buy into the American dream.
Yesterday 24/7 Wall Street published a piece on the “Most (and Least) Healthy Countries in the World.” The rankings are based on an index that measures four variables: “life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and incidence of tuberculosis.”
Far from the Ivory Tower: Global Warming Research in the Gulf of Maine
“What makes me so nervous about the changes that are happening with rapid climate change is less where we are going than the rate we are going there.”
The Strangers’ Gate: An Anti-Wall Concept
Up near the northwest corner of New York’s Central Park, across from the intersection of 106th Street and Central Park West, stands The Strangers’ Gate, one of 20 named entrances to the park, which was designed in 1858 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux
As I wrote last time, the Knight Foundation recently reported the lowest levels of trust in our government since Gallup began tracking the issue sixty years ago. In 1964, for example, 74 percent of Americans trusted the federal government to do what is right at least most of the time. Today that figure is less than 25 percent.
In a Divided Nation, Seeking Common Ground
This is a dangerous place to be. Donald Trump shows no interest in finding common ground, but seeks only to divide us for his political advantage. My fear is that too many Democrats seem to be following the same path.
“Purple mountain majesties”
“The land was ours before we were the land’s,” Robert Frost, The Gift Outright
Endangered Species: Of Birds, Neighborhoods and Democracies
It’s a unique combination of art and social activism, which will, I hope, cause you to reflect on the beauty and the fragility of both our endangered birds and our imperiled neighborhoods.
Why are we giving fat cats a free lunch?
“One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” Lucretius
Some call bureaucratic regulations “job killers” that stifle economic growth
Others call them protections that safeguard human health and the environment.
An Immigrant, an Artist and an American Mythmaker
Two hundred years ago 17-year-old Thomas Cole emigrated from England to the United States, where he would revolutionize painting in his new country by creating “wild landscapes that were unmistakably American.” Born at the onset of the industrial revolution, Cole discovered in the American wilderness an antidote to the polluted rivers, poisoned air, and exploited working people that he had witnessed in the land of his birth.
Politics is fleeting, art endures
In Kalman Aron’s life, art quite literally prevailed over power, allowing him to survive in a place where he was powerless. On a broader level, I wonder whether there may yet be a role for art in a world in which power is the supreme – and increasingly the only – value.
Washington Menu: Universal Service, Public Service and Self Service
I have written in the past about universal service for all Americans, not military service only, but a whole range of “opportunities” – from working in our underfunded public schools to cleaning up our national parks to rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, from the Peace Corps to the Civilian Conservation Corps – and nobody ever disagreed.
Just Another Congressperson Telling It Like It Isn’t
“It's not what you don't know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know for sure that just ain't so,” Mark Twain
Scott Pruitt, Man of the People
Scott Pruitt, the cabinet officer charged with dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency, generally travels first class to avoid people who say mean things to him at airports. This is costing American taxpayers a lot of money. It’s also insulating one more politician from the people he is supposed to represent.
The Making of a Scapegoat
We have so politicized the tragedy of mass murder that we can’t even come together as a country to mourn.
Draft 'em all: an appeal for universal service (Part 2)
From 1968 to 1970 I was stationed at ACE Counterintelligence in Mons, Belgium. ACE was not a description of our professional prowess. It was, like most things in the military, an acronym, standing for Allied Command Europe. We were the intelligence unit for NATO’s military headquarters.
Draft 'em all: an appeal for universal service (Part 1)
Amid plans for an imperial military parade currently being drawn up at the Pentagon (which you would hope had better things to do) and Erik Prince’s lingering proposal to privatize the war in Afghanistan (which Sen. Lindsay Graham called, “something that would come from a bad soldier of fortune novel”), this seems a good time to revisit the idea of universal service for America’s youth.
It’s Only a Game: From the SOTU to the SB
Having passed on the State of the Union (SOTU) speech on Tuesday, I’m gearing up for this week’s other Great American Show (GAS), the Super Bowl (SB).
Looking for America: Portland’s melting pot (a series)
Many supporters of Maine’s governor and America’s president would have you believe that the changes are not a good thing, that they exemplify the shifting demographics that are making the country increasingly unrecognizable to them. Others would argue that Portland’s vitality – and its continuing attraction to young people – derives in no small part from its diversity.