Another World Is Possible
“Keep them busy!” What Trump says and does has kept a lot of the public and government distracted and busy in recent years. On January 28, Trump kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign, alerting us that apparently this “weapon of mass distraction” is to be continued. Like a lot of people, I wonder how things […]
This was quite a year for me, and I’m guessing for everyone! At the end of a year, I like to consider all the things “I gave myself” last year. Using that phrase reminds me to be grateful. I often do this process with loved ones — and so I’ll share a few with you! […]
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 […]