Last time we cited Tom Sightings, self-proclaimed retirement expert, he was conjuring images of the various dream retirements to which he assumed the American public might aspire. His catalogue of utopias reflected the pro-suburban ideology that dominates the mass media: golf communities, small university towns, beach fronts and suburban houses. Not one of Sighting’s dream […]
The Washington Naval Yard mass murder has produced a macabre good news/bad news story: The good news is that a week before the shooting a Virginia gun dealer didn’t sell an AR-15 assault rifle to the shooter, Aaron Alexis, because Alexis wasn’t a resident of the state, a requirement under Virginia state law. The bad […]
Thanks to Cass Sunstein for reviewing Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much in the latest New York Review of Books. In Scarcity, Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir collect and analyze an impressive amount of research to demonstrate that those who suffer a scarcity of a resource—say food or money—dedicate more of their brain […]
Read More… from New book shows that poverty affects brain and makes it harder to think, work, learn
I’ve been occasionally posting one of the poems from my book, Music from Words. My hope is that some dear readers will buy one or more copies of the book. The best place to buy Music from Words is either from the publisher, Bellday Books or from Amazon or another online book store. You can […]
Read More… from For your reading pleasure, another poem from OpEdge author’s book
Debt free and financially secure at retirement. That’s how people now define the American dream, according to a new study by Credit.com. Here are all the results: Define the American Dream Retiring financially secure: 27.9% Being debt-free: 23% Owning a home: 18.2% Graduating from college (paying off student loans): 6.0% Joining the 1%: 3% Other; […]
Read More… from Study implies the American dream has been reduced to a series of financial goals
We saw what was wrong with political coverage in the last debate between the major contenders for the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City: the media is ignorant and creates irrelevant sideshows. The very first question by a Wall Street Journal reporter was ridiculously irrelevant to the issues: share a recent example of […]
Read More… from NYC mayoral debate shows news media ignorance and focus on the irrelevant
Secretary of State John Kerry gave an impassioned rationale for attacking Syria. He tried to build the case for the absolute moral imperative to punish Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons on his own people and to prevent him from doing it again. Kerry detailed the horror of the act for the listening world. Then […]
Read More… from Bloody civil war in Iraq should remind us what could go wrong in Syria
I’m going to start posting one the poems from my book, Music from Words, every few weeks and tell you something about it. My hope is that some dear readers will buy one or more copies of the book. The best place to buy Music from Words is either from the publisher, Bellday Books or […]
Read More… from For your reading pleasure, a poem from OpEdge author’s book
Regime change. It sounds so bland, so calm. So scientific. So bloodless. Here’s what it means: using force to take over another country and then impose a new set of leaders on it or a process guaranteed to produce a new set of leaders. It’s different from a revolution, in which an entire people overthrows […]
The market for collectibles is booming. Be it luxury race cars, paintings, stamps, coins, vintage wines or classic guitars, wealthy people are willing to pay a lot more money than they used to for possessions imbued with special value by society or certain elite groups in society. And why not? They have more money to […]