Category: American Culture
-
First what does it mean to be poor? It turns out that’s not as simple to answer as one might think. Doing research I found that “poor” means different things to different people. Some definitions seem to be rooted in the old institution of the poorhouse, which was a home for paupers. Poorhouses continued to…
-
Most of the major conflicts in the world over the last 1500 years have either been a result of religious intolerance or were supported by religious authority. This makes it the #1 cause or abetter of death and misery at the hands of man. Religion has also been central to the neurotic suffering of man, his lack…
-
In The New York Times, May 19, there was a graphic showing how many mass shootings there have been each month since January 2013. They defined mass shooting as a single event in which 4 or more people are injured or killed. I was shocked. The lowest number of mass shootings in a month was 11; the highest…
-
As I’ve traveled this past year, spending time in a variety of places, I’ve discovered that Airbnb is having a very harmful impact on both the availability and affordability of housing stock in both cities and small towns. Yearly rents are going up because there are fewer apartments or houses available to rent, as owners…
-
During the ongoing debate about the nature of climate change, I had assumed, as I’m sure most others have, that the revelation both regarding the extent of climate change and the cause of that change being greenhouse gases was relatively recent. I certainly never remember the subject being raised before the 90s. I was shocked therefore…
-
There is much societal strife in this world, and the reason comes down to one of two things: either a country or group has something we want or wants something we have, or we feel threatened by the otherness of the other, that we cannot be safe while the other has potential power over us. I…
-
A few days ago, a father of one of the children killed in the Parkland school shooting voiced his emotion and rage at President Trump, but then said that he didn’t favor gun restrictions; instead he wanted the school to be made a safe place. He said the battle over gun restrictions was for another time.…
-
In my previous post, I wrote about the evolution of our society from one which preached the importance of society and individuals having concern for the welfare of their fellow man and acting accordingly to one in which it’s all about “me.” Where self-centeredness is the prevalent norm and socially acceptable. This is damaging our democracy and our…
-
Recently, two new books that explain the danger the Trump presidency poses to the survival of our democracy have attracted much attention: Trumped Up: How Criminalization of Political Differences Endangers Democracy, and Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump. Briefly stated, the first argues that the large polar-opposite groups that have developed in response…
-
It’s lunch time and either your children are clamoring for McDonalds or you want a dependable fast meal. It used to be that McDonalds was a place to feed yourself and your family cheaply, getting some reasonable nutritional value although accompanied by too much sugar and carbs. Today I was on the Massachusetts Turnpike and went to…
