A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

Our Long Walk Home

We started this week.

Rounding the Corner

Bruce Springsteen’s 2006 song, “Long Walk Home,” offered a stark metaphor for George W. Bush’s America. The protagonist returns to a hometown peopled by friends who, having abandoned their ideals, have become strangers to him.

Since 2016, that feeling has rung true for many of us, arguably to an even greater extent.

But the song is also resolute and hopeful about the long walk back to enduring ideals, a better town and a better country. Its most memorable lines are:

You know that flag flying over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone

Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t

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Rainmaker

Trump is toast. But his final presidential scam is a doozy.

The Good News

The Donald Trump Electoral Unreality Show, which features him still trying to steal the presidency from Joe Biden, will come to an end come January 6. That’s the day that Congress will meet to count and accept the electoral college results submitted by the states. Those results will show Biden winning by 306-232 – and by a margin of over seven million votes, though of course the popular vote officially means nothing in America’s particularly peculiar version of democracy.

Could Congress reject the results? In theory, yes. In reality, no. For that rejection to take place, both houses would have to separately vote to do so. With the Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, that simply won’t happen.  

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American Nero

Trump's actions are execrable. His inaction is even worse.

If the Shoe Fits

Though dictator Ferdinand Marcos was deposed in the Philippines back in 1986, to this day many foreigners know him best for the 3,000 pairs of shoes accumulated by his insatiable clotheshorse of a wife, Imelda. Her collection was so bizarre, her greed so brazen, that it still astounds.

Imelda Marcos’s footwear symbolized so much about a duo that stole $10 billion from their country’s coffers: their corruption, arrogance, human rights abuses and indifference to the poverty and suffering of their fellow Filipinos. To top it all off, many of those ripped off by the rapacious couple remain loyal to their memory and family to this day.

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Enemies of the People

Health officials bear the hateful brunt of Covid lies. But finally the real enemy is on his way out.

From Norway to the Congo…

In Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play, An Enemy of the People, a Norwegian doctor finds himself excoriated by his fellow citizens for informing them that the town spa’s waters are contaminated and put people’s lives at risk. Because revealing this information beyond the community could crush the local economy, he suffers scorn and abuse.

He and his daughter lose their jobs. His house is vandalized. His family faces eviction. He’s advised to leave town.

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A Thanksgiving Like No Other

Grief, giving, ambivalence and blessings, all at once.

A Thanksgiving for Giving

For many Americans, this Thanksgiving arrives with pain, loss, isolation and hardship. Covid cases and deaths are skyrocketing. One in eight adults report not having enough to eat in the past week; the figure is one in six for households with children in them. The situation in numerous other nations is yet worse.

For folks much more fortunate, Covid and Trump’s legacy (even in defeat) still make this a time of grief and ambivalence. In view of the unprecedented plight of so many in 2020, it might be particularly appropriate for the more fortunate to mark Thanksgiving with giving to worthy causes this year. So, for those able and interested…

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