United States
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Giving Thanks When the Holiday Doesn’t Deserve Them
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3 min read
I kind of hate Thanksgiving. I do love my family, the festivities, watching the Detroit Lions, the parade. I especially love the food. Oh, I love the food. For the longest time, my favorite food in the whole world was stuffing. It still comes close. No, the reason I hate Thanksgiving is the holiday’s origin.…
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For Newt Gingrich It’s the Labor in Child Labor
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2 min read
The headline should read: Presidential Candidate Eager for Gilded Age‘s Return Instead it reads: Newt Gingrich: Child Labor Laws Are ‘Stupid’ Gingrich’s position is, of course, more nuanced than it sounds. And you have to give him credit for this characteristic bit of brainstorming on his part. But, as is always the case with this…
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The Two Politics
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4 min read
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 So outdated is this vision of politics, that we even use war metaphors as evidence of only two…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
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4 min read
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
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5 min read
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
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2 min read
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…