Travels with Amos: We are Home!

The 49-day journey across the United States and back met my highest expectations in many ways:  the weather was close to perfect; I encountered some incredible people who shared their views about America freely with me; my dog Amos was a great traveler; it was [...]

Travels with Amos: Amish Barn-Raising in Maine

Kennon, Amos and I are now moving south towards home. After climbing to the “roof” of Maine on Highway 11 on Thursday, we turned the corner onto Highway 1 Friday and drove out of the hills and potato fields to the sea. We entered Maine [...]

Travels with Amos: Minnesota and Wisconsin

The journey through the countryside and small towns of Minnesota and Wisconsin was beautiful. Kennon and I particularly enjoyed Bayfield and Ashland, two towns on Lake Superior. You can see the pictures here. As a political junkie, I appreciated being in Wisconsin as the June [...]

Protests, Lopsided Democracy, and a Warning to Women

No Wonder They are Protesting Do you wonder why the Occupy Wall-Streeters continue their protest? Well, here is just one possible cause: in a time of growing disparity between the rich and the poor; a time when millions of people have lost their homes to [...]

I Want to Take Kids to the Doctor

A Doctor Visit In a forum on the subject of child poverty in Asheville, North Carolina, a low income mother said” I don’t want to take my children to Disney World. I just want to be able to take them to the doctor.” It is [...]

More on Deficits and Dollars

Right on Governor Patrick In response to  “Imagine the America Your Grandchildren Will Inherit” (see above) a friend sent me a Washington Post op-ed piece by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. It follows the same theme: “If the deficit is reduced by spending cuts alone and [...]

Warning to Democrats; Supercommittee Collapse; Republican Obstruction; Kyl Obfuscation

A Warning We Should Heed Nicholas Kristof offered good advice to Democrats who judge President Obama harshly and threaten to abandon him in the 2012 election: “Think back to 2000. Many Democrats,” he wrote, “feeling grouchy, were dismissive of Al Gore and magnified his shortcomings. We [...]

The Two Parties Live in Different Moral Universes

“Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different priorities; they live in different intellectual and moral universes” Paul Krugman wrote in his November 18 op-ed in The New York Times. Democrats, according to Krugman, see a world in which “up is up and down is down. [...]

Follow the Money

Leaders of American corporations publically embrace the idea of reducing tax rates in exchange for eliminating loopholes and deductions. But, as Adam Davidson reported in Sunday’s (November 13th) New York Times, 1,885 “corporations and interest groups… lobbied in favor of loopholes and tax breaks and [...]

I Agree with Mitt Romney

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was right on point when, in announcing Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, he said, “I happen to believe that this is a defining election for America; that we’re going to be voting for what kind of America we’re [...]

Disgrace: Romney Pledges to Repeal Healthcare Law

A note from the editor: The following article is written by David Prescott. David  is a long-time friend and colleague; a retired businessman from Princeton, NJ; a big thinker and an ardent environmentalist now living in Santa Fe, NM;  and a man of impeccable integrity. [...]

Conflicted on Taxes

The Republican Party agenda on taxation is conflicted: Republicans are in favor of slashing taxes … unless the tax cut benefits people who are not wealthy, and is proposed by Barack Obama. The President has asked Congress to cut every workers payroll tax bill in [...]