Let's step back for a moment. Imagine we are social scientists or anthropologists as we take an objective look at the United States. What would we see?
We'd notice that the so-called "great experiment" in democracy has produced some bizarre phenomena.
On the one hand, life in the U.S. for most people is highly agreeable. That doesn't mean most people talk about it that way or even think about it that way, but then, they have little to compare it to. As Robert Frost wrote, "How are we to write / The Russian novel in America / As long as life goes so unterribly?"
On the other hand, right now, a schism corrupts the fabric of the country.
The Florida Board of Education has set a new standard of how history will be taught in Florida schools. This comes after a long assault on the parts of history that tell the truth about the United States' dark past of slavery. The board's new account is that African-Americans...
Let's begin with what the Age of Enlightenment was. It was a time when objective thought, science and math, reason and structure, and evidence-based conclusions were a radical departure from the previous world of the tyranny of belief systems as the sole authority in one's life. The hope was...
In an ironic way, as horrible as it was, the Fourth of July shooting was the perfect illustration of the United States of America in 2022. This is the America we live in. This is the one that has been created by decades of inaction around weapons of war available to the sickest minds among us. The America we may fantasize about is gone. Maybe it was never there, but once it was closer to that idyllic image than what...
While the majority of Americans - over 90 percent, including most gun owners - want actual gun control so we don't have what now is called a “mass casualty event,” we are frozen in place by the gun lobby, and, it must be said, by most Republicans. Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, is going to talk about how sad he is about the massacre that took place on Tuesday in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where, at this point,
His leadership has been breathtaking. So has the courage and true patriotism of the Ukrainian people. Make no mistake: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's life is on the line. Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatened by him, and now, with the world moved by his heroism, with the contrast of the democrat versus the despot, David versus Goliath, Putin is put to shame and is more motivated than ever to get rid of him. Putin has trained assassins searching for Zelenskyy,
There are three superb candidates running for the Newfane Selectboard this cycle: Ann Golob, Jeff Chevalier, and Katy Johnson-Aplin. It is hard to find people to dedicate themselves to town government, so to have these high-quality candidates represents something hopeful for the foundation of local government - which, in Vermont, is the most direct example of true democracy. All three candidates have extensive backgrounds in planning, small business experience, and civics. I recommend that voters support these exceptional choices to...
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, President George W. Bush mishandled it. He praised Michael D. Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.” In light of the disaster, Bush undermined his own credibility. I have a theory about how he ended up in a situation where the head of FEMA was a novice, incapable of addressing the situation. During the Clinton administration, James Lee Witt was appointed head of FEMA.