NIMBY is Not a Four-Letter Word (Part 1)
Many years ago, when I published a community newspaper in southeastern Pennsylvania, Wal-Mart announced it intended to build a super store just outside of town.
Read MoreTwo Fables: Revolution by Evolution
But what happens when our government not only doesn’t protect us from corporate exploitation, but actually enables it?
Read MoreLooking for America from my sh*thole of an office (a series)
So here I am, sitting in my shithole of an office wondering what happened to my country. I know it was around here somewhere when I went to sleep about a year ago, but I’ve looked everywhere this morning and I just can’t find it.
Read MoreLooking for America: My first political campaign (a series)
In the late summer of 1966, with nothing much to do and, in the words of Chuck Berry, “no particular place to go,” I signed on to the campaign of John J. Buckley, who was running for Massachusetts state auditor.
Read MoreLooking for America: Beauty and the Bomb Cyclone (a series)
I lugged what seemed like the 800th load of wood to feed the fireplace’s insatiable appetite, shoveled paths to the car, the compost, and the wood pile, endured two frozen pipes, two nights without heat, and two days when the thermometer never got above single digits . . . and that was just a warm-up (if that’s the word I’m looking for) to the “Bomb Cyclone,” which was heading up the coast of Maine with sub-zero temperatures trailing in its wake.
Read MoreLooking for America, Coping with Depression (a series)
Like more than 16 million Americans, I suffer from depression. For many years I took medication to help cope with my mood swings. I also talked off and on for over two decades with a wonderfully helpful man whom I adamantly refused to call my therapist. But he retired, which is what happens when you (and your support group) grow older, which is, needless to say, depressing.
Read MoreLooking for America, from Tombstone to the Lincoln Memorial (a series)
Most Americans know about the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, when 250,000 people marched for “Jobs and Freedom.” The march ended at the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the speech that would define his legacy, with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson standing behind him saying, “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin, tell ‘em about the dream!” – and he did.
Read MoreLooking for America, getting beaten up in Alabama (a series)
It wasn’t only white people who feared the disruptions that came with young civil rights workers in the 1960s South. Black communities were wary of the violence and retribution they would face after the volunteers had left.
Read MoreLooking for America (A Series)
It was a long ride from Boston to Alma, Georgia, in the late spring of 1971, and to be honest, I don’t remember if the bus was integrated or not after we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line. I do remember that Alma wasn’t.
Read MoreI’ve Lost My Country, Too
I have listened. I have read your books. I have traveled to the places where you live and work and talked to you there. I have learned a lot. Most of all, I have learned how little I really know.
Read MoreSenator Murkowski’s Sad Bargain
The price of Senator Lisa Murkowski’s vote to approve the tax bill and reverse herself on health care was to end 57 years – dating back to the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower – of protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Like her father who preceded her as Alaska’s senator, she has been fighting for years to open up ANWR to oil and gas drilling. It looks like she will finally get her wish.
Read MoreTruth Trumps Satire
Because I have an early dentist appointment, I wrote the following post, which was intended as satire, last night . . . only to wake this morning to Billy Bush’s op-ed piece in The New York Times. It took courage to write, and it brought to mind Hans Christian Andersen’s story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
Read MoreMaybe it’s time to call in the Worm
In an interview with BBC earlier this week, an expert on North Korea from Johns Hopkins made two unsettling points.
Read MorePema Chödrön and the parable of the walled community
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” Robert Frost, Mending Wall.
Read MoreOK, but what can my country do for me?
Fifty-four years ago today John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas. In his inaugural address fewer than three years earlier, he had inspired many of my generation with the words, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
Read MoreFriday Follies: Let’s Do the Numbers
This week Team TRUMP sent me the following email:
Friend, CNN is at it again. Their latest phony poll claims that 64% of Americans have less confidence in President Trump than they did one year ago. Yet of more than 1,000 people interviewed, just 24% were Republicans.
Read MoreOn seeing the Statue of Liberty lit up by the setting sun
Last Friday evening I was wandering along the Brooklyn waterfront, when I looked west across New York Harbor and into the setting sun and saw the mystical sight of the Statue of Liberty lit up against the evening sky.
Read MoreFriday’s Fake News Quiz
Guess which of yesterday’s headlines are false.
Read MoreGeneral Kelly was right . . . and oh so wrong
Last week White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, "the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”
Read MoreIt’s Science Friday. Who cares?
When Sam Clovis, President Trump’s nominee to be the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist, was asked to list his academic credentials in science or agriculture, he answered, “None.”
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