We have one more chance—in Lincoln’s words, a “last best hope”—to bring our democracy back from the dead. It will be like a complex medical rescue that requires just the right interventions, in just the right sequence, at just the right speed: amputation, transfusion, multiple-organ transplant, stabilization, rehabilitation. Each step will be very hard, and … Continue reading The Good Kind of Plastic
You've got to reach across the aisle and across philosophies in this country. ~Joe Biden I saw some numbers this week that reminded me of a conversation I had a few months ago, before COVID times, with a woman who lives in southern Missouri. She found It Starts Today-Missouri, an organization I work with that … Continue reading Reaching Out and Across to Move Ahead
Who are you? Asked the caterpillar. ... Alice replied, rather shyly, “I – I hardly know, Sir, just at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” ~Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland Brief words today, friends … Continue reading The Ever Evolving Movement
The nation is divided – half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which. ~Mark Twain On our drive to school (back when you had to do such a thing) my son and I used to listen to podcasts. One of our favorites was Stories Podcast. It’s chock full of original, … Continue reading Don’t Feed The Vultures
“Empathy.... it’s what we teach our children... We try to instill a strong moral foundation.... but right now kids in the is country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another. They are looking around wondering if we’ve been lying to them this whole time about who we are and what we … Continue reading The death of empathy
A dramatic reorganization of the home causes correspondingly dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective. It is life transforming. ~Marie Kondo I realized it yesterday, as I tore through the house looking for a Fortnite beach towel. (There may have been four letter words uttered during the search.) I've lost my mind. I've never been particularly … Continue reading Organizing Chaos
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. ~Soren Kierkegaard You can’t really move forward until you look back. ~Cornel West I like looking backwards sometimes. Because when you’re looking at your feet, or at the road ahead, you lose sight of how much ground you’ve covered. When you intentionally look … Continue reading Looking Backwards
A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option — for peace cannot exist where justice is not served. ~John Lewis The women wear yellow shirts and bike helmets. They're vaguely your age, or … Continue reading Wall Of We the People
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~Anne Frank For over a decade, I lived in Chicago. Which means that, as most Chicagoans do, I had a strong relationship with the train (AKA the “el,” which is short for “elevated”). Every day I would take … Continue reading How to Get Someone to Move
The great owners, striking at the immediate thing, the widening government, the growing labor unity; striking at new taxes, at plans; not knowing these things are results, not causes. Results, not causes; results, not causes. The causes lie deep and simple—the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in … Continue reading Turning I into We: Great Suffering Leads to Great Change
