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The Two Politics
In the United States we have two politics. Competitive Politics The first, I’ll call “Competitive Politics,” is the two-party system of pugilism, evidenced by our incessant competitive metaphors. We talk about horse races, boxing matches, and football. So outdated is this vision of politics, that we even use war metaphors as evidence of only two…
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Fixing the problem of college costs
Student loan debt recently broke $100 billion for the first time in history. It isn’t like we couldn’t see this coming. Virtually no wage increase for the bottom 95% over the last thirty years. Annual tuition increases above inflation rate. State payment cuts to universities. Decreased scholarship opportunities. The end result is college costs have…
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A shocking lack of historical knowledge
We all know the paraphrase, if not the real quote by George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it.” And we seem to believe it. Sort of. Considering the ease with which we warn each other that such a leader as our own is the second coming of Hitler, it…
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Occupy Wall Street’s collective statement
For those following #OccupyWallStreet, click on their first collective statement. One of the criticisms of the movement has been their lack of central authority and a clear, concise statement of demands. What is unique to this movement, and more typical of organizations today, rather than 50 years ago, is the belief that the first step toward…
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My wife is a rock star
That is what I tweeted more than a month ago when my son was born. “My wife is a rock star.” I meant it. Because I witnessed a woman overcoming her fears and helping a 7 1/2 pound baby get out of her body by herself. If you haven’t witnessed childbirth, you can’t imagine…
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Christianity, the state, and the rising urge to kill someone
Over the last week or so, some really good Christians have written about the death penalty from a Christian perspective. It has been in the public consciousness for the last few weeks. I gave my own response recently. But in the responses, a curious thing happened. There was what has to be this moment of…
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Losing our morality in the death penalty
We are responsible. This isn’t about someone else. It is about us. We haven’t been doing enough. Last week, when confronted with the fact that he sent 234 inmates to their execution, including an innocent man, Texas Governor Rick Perry appeared jubilant and remorseless–and the Tea Party-filled crowd cheered. As I tweeted, I had visions…
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What if China fails?
I was sitting in Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and some book title I can no longer remember caught my eye. It made me think of this question: what if China fails? It got me thinking. What if the Chinese economy collapsed today? What would it mean for all of us here? This…