The US is the oligarch of the world. We know it, and statistics show it. Of countries with the highest military spending in 2022, the US spends more than the next nine countries combined (chart should say “9” instead of “10” countries). Even worse, US military spending is $2,219 per person, more than twelve times […]
“Fine” used to be a fairly typical response to the question of “How are you?” but I don’t hear “fine” as much anymore. “Hanging in there” or “Okay” seem more likely after these past few years of wars, economic reversals, pandemics, and weather catastrophes. The old “80% of success is showing up” has become even […]
Here is a half-minute clip of one of the most significant Freudian slips I’ve ever heard. Earlier this year George W. Bush meant to be talking about Russia, but he made the mistake of momentarily looking up from his written speech. He denounced “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal […]
Words that really struck me recently are from a newer, much shorter novel by the author of The Overstory, Richard Powers. In Bewilderment (W. W. Norton & Company, 2021), Powers tells us a story about an astrobiologist and his son, who are looking for evidence of life in the universe. Oh, this planet was a […]
In the 1980s people carried protest signs saying “US out of Nicaragua!” and El Salvador, and Grenada, and then many others. I also saw signs saying “US out of my uterus!” While the problems may seem to be quite different — the first ones are international and the last is very personal — they really […]
It’s in our names! That’s probably the simplest answer to the question of “How do these two political parties survive, despite the two Titanic Parties trying to kill us since the day we were born?” Values people hold dear are in our names: Green Party and Peace and Freedom Party. Add Justice to the list, […]
At the very beginning of this piece, I want to express something I think is both true and very important in these times: I believe we can learn more truth about what’s really going on than we now know, and still have joy, happiness and kindness in our lives. We can know more truth, with […]
At the end of Dwight Eisenhower’s term as a Republican president from 1953 to 1961, the top marginal income tax rate was 91%. That rate applied not to the entire income, but only to the top portion of a very high income. The rich could still get richer, but not obscenely so, as they do […]
While looking forward to a new year, I remembered a poem called Ojalá by the late Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano. The Spanish word “ojalá” means “if only.” I feel lucky to have attended a lecture by Eduardo Galeano in 2013, two years before he passed. His many books included The Open Veins of Latin America, […]
Florence Nightingale, social reformer, statistician (!), and the founder of modern nursing, said, “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.” Her “no excuses” policy seems like a great lesson for everyone, but don’t get me wrong. I know very well there are reasons — systemic reasons — that affect […]
