A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

Bring on Your Wrecking Ball: Americans Defy Election Deniers

They'll be back. And so will we.

Not all it’s cracked up to be.

A tale of two summers

In the summer of 1983, I visited an old friend who was a young foreign service officer in Manila. Sitting in his living room, sharing beers and shooting the breeze with a few of his colleagues, we discussed the Philippines’ future. One colleague granted that its then-dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, was a repressive ruler. But he insisted that the dictator was “the only game in town.”

Less than three years later, Filipinos’ “People Power” ousted Marcos.

Pro-democracy Americans’ summer of discontent in 2022 obviously differed from that of Manila in 1983. But there was something similar in the despair in the air here.

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Ukraine: It’s the End of the World as We Know It. Here’s Why I Feel (Kinda Sorta) Fine.

Yes, despair at Ukrainians' suffering. But their struggles, and ours, do not end here.

Tough, horrifying, unprecedented times indeed. Especially for Ukraine, but also for the world. But not all is lost.

Through my international development consulting and research, I’ve had sporadic contact with Ukraine and a smattering of its citizens over the years. Here are a few scattered recollections and impressions, followed by some speculation on where we go from here.

Bling and blandness in a newly independent state

First visiting the country in 1996, when it was still a newly independent state in the wake of the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, I joined a U.S. Government-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) delegation looking to build contacts with and democracy-oriented training for political party personnel there. I was just an observer, along for the ride to learn about how the NDI operates and to advise it on how to evaluate those operations.

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Springsteen, Faith and Looking Up in 2022

Facing the storms ahead.

Happy New Year?

If you haven’t yet rung in 2022 by seeing the Netflix film Don’t Look Up, consider doing so asap.

Directed, co-produced and co-written by Adam McKay, who also gave us The Big Short and Vice, it’s an over-the-top, hilarious, heartbreaking and bang on critique of our times…in a giant-comet-is-going-to-smash-into-the-earth-and-wipe-out-humanity sort of way.

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From 9/11/01 to 9/11/21

2001: United Flight #93 terrorists’ attempted attack on the Capitol, foiled by heroic passengers acting together.
2021: Insurrectionists’ successful seizure of the Capitol, egged on by a demagogue tearing us apart.

2001: Terrorists from abroad, determined to destroy our way of life.
2021: Terrorists from here at home, determined to do the same thing.

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Memorial Daze

In the wake of the January 6th insurrection, Republican leaders want us to sleepwalk through history as they dishonor the graves of the fallen.

From a National Holiday to 1984

Memorial Day honors Americans who died while performing their military duties in our armed forces. This year, it is accompanied by attempts to make Americans sleepwalk through history.

The holiday arrives but three days after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of a bipartisan commission that would have investigated the January 6th Capitol insurrection. And it comes just one day after the Texas Legislature tried but temporarily failed to adopt one of the most stringent voter suppression laws in the country.

What we have, then, is a national holiday commemorating our history, following on the heels of a major political party seeking to deny it.

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