As the U.S. pauses from work to celebrate freedom, what national liberation do you desire? At the risk of seeming ridiculous, I’d love the public interest to awaken from its self-imposed trance, putting the people’s business before self-serving politics. When a pig flies, you say? Look north, up in the sky, what’s that pink blob …
“The personal is political.” If you were sentient in the sixties and seventies, you heard it almost daily. No doubt, you also said it now and then. It still echoes occasionally around the Zeitgeist, but with a less commanding tone. It’s been a little over a year since I left a decades-long marriage, and I …
At times like this spring, when I’ve been on the move and meeting deadlines pretty much non-stop, my policy of blogging only when the spirit sparks me tends to bog down. Life takes on a hamster-wheel quality, and the poor pooped hamster has few insights worth sharing. My favorite philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, is famous for …
I’ve been talking about “paradigm shift” a lot lately, much to the annoyance of people who are tired of seeing that rubric misused and overused. But bear with me, because it is apt and irreplaceable sometimes, and one of those times is now. If you haven’t already read the introduction to Tony Judt’s new book, …
I’m heading home tomorrow, after being on the road for a couple of weeks, during which Arizona’s new and frightening anti-immigrant legislation was being passed, triggering vast and vastly appalled protest. I am glad to see from news photos that the scope of May Day protests exceeded expectations, but the photos also seem to say …
Last month, Representative George Miller introduced the “Local Jobs for America Act,” H. R. 4812, much-needed legislation “To provide funds to States, units of general local government, and community-based organizations to save and create local jobs through the retention, restoration, or expansion of services needed by local communities, and for other purposes.” The bill contains …
One of the many things that’s changed since I was a child is the kind of attention directed to youthful experience. Schools are more punitive, with a well-worn track between schoolhouse and jailhouse for infringements that would previously have warranted some extra time in study hall. Yet they may display more attentiveness to children’s feelings …
Passover starts Monday evening, the great celebration of liberation from bondage, both literal and figurative. For the first seder—the ritual meal of symbolic foods that accompanies the retelling of the Exodus from Egypt—I will be with friends whose lives are dedicated to progressive politics. I expect that in the telling, there will be many parallels …
I’m writing today about President Obama’s jobs bill, a supremely disappointing effort to evade both the necessity and risk this moment demands. I don’t want Congress and the administration to get away with pretending a tax credit to businesses will address the need for job creation. And I think it’s up to us to make …
Just about every spiritual tradition preaches it; just about every psychological tradition teaches it. So why is it so hard to learn to separate one’s desire from expectations of its fulfillment? Why is it so tempting to give up wanting what doesn’t seem to be forthcoming? One of my strongest desires is help potentiate a …