Author Profile

Recent Posts

Searching for the thing with feathers

 February 3, 2020  I’m not a glass half-full guy, not by a long shot. In the face of certain grim realities, I’m not likely to conjure hope, what Emily Dickinson called “the thing with feathers”. My glass half-empty bona fides are evidenced by the fact that my journalistic hero is not the courageous Edward R. […]

The useful, the pleasurable, and the good

 January 6, 2021       I was struck recently by a piece by Nate White, a British writer trying to uncover why so many Britons dislike Donald Trump. Among other equally serious characteristics, he observed that Trump is utterly without humor. “He has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not […]

The last and greatest of all human dreams

 December, 2020 The election has left very few of us in a state we can call deeply satisfying. Seventy-four million Americans saw their preferred candidate defeated, with 50 million of them believing it was done illegally; and nearly 80 million got to say they won behind a candidate whose most appealing virtue seems to be […]

The autumn of our discontent

 November 4, 2020                                             Here we are, the morning after. Deadlines being what they are, you know the results of the election and I don’t. Nevertheless, it’s a safe bet the country hasn’t been transformed […]

Losing the invisible, collateral education

 October, 2020  Some kids have been back to school for a few weeks now, some haven’t. I can’t help but worry for those at home, for what they are missing. I worry for us as well. If education were the sum total of information transferred from one source or person to another, then online instruction […]

The cowboy, freedom, and American exceptionalism

Sept. 2020                               Over the past six months I’ve seen hundreds of TV images of ordinary Americans trying to live their lives in the midst of a pandemic. One of the most memorable clips was a street scene in Texas in which […]

Losing the immeasurable, collateral education

Some kids have been back to school for a few weeks now, some haven’t. I can’t help but worry for those at home, for what they are missing. I worry for us as well. If education were the sum total of information transferred from one source or person to another, then online instruction might be […]

Betsy DeVos: The Fox and the Hen House

They say the opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings. For today, we might say the schoolhouse doesn’t open until the school marm rings the bell. Our national school marm, Betsy DeVos, is lifting the bell as parents and teachers all over the country cry, “No, not with my kids you don’t! Not until […]

In search of social trust and new habits of thinking

 July, 2020    For many of us, 1968 was the most chaotic and divisive year of our civic lives. Assassinations, police brutality, race riots, violent anti-war protests, military assaults on American citizens, ineffectual political leadership, class hatreds, and corporate predation driven by an unnecessary war. All that was needed to make it worse than 2020 […]

Tara Reade, Joe Biden, and #MeToo: Showdown in Philosophy 101

June, 2020 Tara Reade’s claim that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 puts Democrats and the #MeToo movement in a dilemma. Having taken the stance that Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against nominee Brett Kavanaugh was sufficient to stop his Supreme Court nomination, what are they to do with Tara Reade’s claim? Should Biden be […]