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Bill Moyers on “The Cowardly Lions of Free Speech”
Here is Bill Moyers’ response to the recent Supreme Court decision not to revisit Citizen’s United. Check out the full clip, which only runs 6 1/2 minutes. Three things don’t go together: Money....
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The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew Bacevich –...
Anyone paying attention knows that our nation has lost its way, but that’s where clarity ends. How and when did we go wrong? Sometimes I wish I could read the histories that will be written a...
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Sponsored Clutter: Coming Soon to a Newsfeed Near You
Reblogged from Maggie (Not Margaret): Or, Sponsored Stories are Bad News for Facebook Users Recently, my Facebook reach has been rather down. What, I’m I suddenly not as interesting? Are my pictures...
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The Face of Class Warfare
In the wake of the election, I more or less swore off posting political content here, except on special occasions like when the first day of a new month falls on Saturday. On days like this, I am...
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Change is the only constant
That’s what they say in the tech industry. That’s what Buddha said 2600 years ago. And that’s what the National Intelligence Council says in a 140 page report, “Global Trends 2030: Alternative...
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Economic imaginings
The key aim of this blog, as stated on my “About” page, is to look at “the reality in our fantasies and the fantasy in our realities.” The phrase was inspired by James Hillman, who used the word...
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Robots ‘R Us (?)
In the field of robotics, as in so many other areas of life, science fiction writers saw the future decades before the rest of us; they warned that androids were coming and the relationship would not...
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The Secret of Getting Ahead?
Those who are old enough to have watched “Hee-Haw” will remember a song that Tennessee Ernie, Buck Owens, and the gang sang almost every week, “Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me.” One of the lines was,...
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The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer
In the first sentence of The Unwinding, George Packer tells us what his title means: “No one can say when the unwinding began – when the coil that held Americans together in its secure and sometimes...
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Good News on the Food Front
In several recent posts I’ve expressed the opinion, and quoted others expressing the opinion, that traditional institutions and governments are no longer able to deal with the most serious problems...
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Informed Citizen Disorder
Words can sometimes illuminate. Bill Moyers’ recent interview with Marty Kaplan, Professor of Entertainment, Media, and Society at USC, gave me a phrase that crystalizes the sense of despair that...
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Pope Francis on Economic Justice
“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?” - Pope Francis (1) On Tuesday, Pope Francis delivered...
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Robots ‘R Us, installment 2
The Steam Man of the Prairies, 1868. Public Domain. An obscure author, Edward S. Ellis, who published a dime novel called The Steam Man of the Prairies 145 years ago, may prove to have been a visionary...
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Socially Responsible Purchasing Power
Morgan Mussell:Here’s some nice info to pass on. I’m already a fan of Paul Newman salad dressings and popcorn, and it’s great to hear of garments made in America once again. I like the idea of socially...
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The Big Lie
“The great masses will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one” – Adolf Hitler “I crossed the green mountain / I slept by the stream Heaven blazing in my head / I dreamt a monstrous...
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The Devil’s Sooty Brothers
Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, 1855. Painting by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann “People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way round.” – Terry Pratchett “The Devil’s Sooty Brother” is...
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Changes
2×2 Matrix: possible futures, by Gaurau Mishra. CC-BY-2.0 Almost four years ago, I posted Change is the Only Constant, a discussion of the December, 2012 report of the National Intelligence Council, a...
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The Hungry Ghosts of Washington
Hungry Ghost Scroll, Kyoto, late 12th c. There are six realms of being in traditional Buddhist cosmology. Two of these, the human and the animal realms, are visible to our senses. The other four are...
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John Believer’s Prophecy
The Fool in the Tarot de Marseilles When I was a college freshman in Oregon, a bearded fellow in a long black coat would sometimes harangue the crowds in the quad at lunch time. He’d bring a box to...
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Canary in the Coal Mine
Idiom in the News: Canary in the Coal Mine, by ShareAmerica, 11/12/14 canary in a coal mine (plural canaries in a coal mine or canaries in coal mines) (idiomatic) Something whose sensitivity to adverse...
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