Tag Archives: nation

Cross-country road trip a source of comfort in a divided nation

In the Deming, New Mexico, La Quinta motel on I -10 the friendly young woman behind the main desk was named Paris. When my wife asked her whether she had ever been to Paris, she replied that actually, she had. “And it smelled like pee.” Try to figure out the politics of that. In early […]

Healthcare initiative having trouble with liftoff [July 2009 / CCT]

It is indeed strange when you have to go back 40 years to get back to the future. When men bouncing on the moon looks quaint. Fact is, that first moon trip is more ancient to kids today than the Model T Ford was to baby boomers when we were young. Some pundits are calling […]

[ op ed ] Occupy oustings: the emperor’s naked power

As Occupiers seem to know, the crackdown– tents torn down, books and personal belongings confiscated, the arrests, the cowardly pepper spraying at UC Davis—none of this is a defeat. On the contrary, forcing the powers-that-be to show their hand is the biggest victory so far. Almost certainly the 1% didn’t want to resort to police […]

[op-ed ] What’s missing is clarity, not civility

“The problem is with a Congress which can’t compromise for the good of the country.” I heard somebody say this in an NPR interview the other day in the aftermath of the budget crisis in Washington. The next day at a gathering a friend announced with a twinkle that he was thinking of starting a […]

[op-ed] Resolving our Afghanistan contradiction

The Academy Award- nominated documentary “Restrepo” is on the frontline of our thinking about Afghanistan. There will be a showing of it on June 20 at 7:30 at WHAT theater as part of Wellfleet Library’s “One Book, One Community” series. I spent some time looking up reviews online and was surprised to discover that there […]

[ op-ed ] An exceptionally naïve and dangerous concept

To us revolution is a spectator sport. We look on with curiosity as Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya evolve, revolve, transform. Their struggles get our attention, maybe even our admiration. But they don’t apply to us. We are unchanging, static. We had our revolution a long time ago and that was that. Having gotten out from […]