Now for some good news. Real people in real places are getting excited about saving our beautiful planet. The usual suspects? Hardly! Fifteen hundred inner city kids in Louisville, Kentucky, are so excited about being environmentally responsible that they're inspiring grownups in the city's utility companies. "The Seed Lady", Anna...

What do I want to be when I grow up and die? An "Ancestor" like our friend Giriraj Rao. He illumined the way Saturday from his place of honor, the flowered-strewn casket holding the last of his earthly remains. His was a Hindu service held in a non-sectarian funeral home....

We were in small-town Pennsylvania last week.  We were there to record a series of conversations with Frederick Ferré, who literally wrote the book on the philosophy of technology. But the upcoming Democratic primary there merged at every turn with Dr. Ferré's mind-bending Constructive Post-Modern philosophy.  (He's quick to apologize...

I've been dismayed by female voices decrying my and other women's opposition to Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations. From the '60s forward, I've identified with "second-wave feminism" because justice demands women be evaluated on merit, not physiology. My mind has not changed. Senator Clinton does not make the cut on my...

Words should matter. Randall Kennedy reminds us of that in SellOut. It's been a good week for words. "Transformed Nonconformists" were Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words for justice-seekers. Dr. Robert Franklin quoted them at his inauguration as President of Dr. King's alma mater Morehouse College on Friday. Many powerful words...

A sign of the times: my friend "Coach" calls himself a "confirmed redneck." Football's safe, politics we avoid. Until Superbowl Sunday. Coach greets me with, "I'm mad as hell at Bush...but Hillary's ruthless and I don't trust her." What about Obama?" I ask. "Well...(long pause)...I do wish he were whiter....

"Most of the disasters have come from politicians seeking to offload public problems onto business: American health care is one sad example."*

Preventive medicine works. Our friend's rare form of cancer is gone, along with the offending cervix where disease was spotted during a routine annual check-up. If she'd...

Early in Bush the Lesser's administration there was much talk about how wonderful it was to have an "MBA President," how that kind of business expertise would solve America's and ultimately the world's problems. If you view budget surpluses as a problem and asset bubbles as a solution, take a...

"Follow the Money"
- Deep Throat to Bob Woodward

Shake off the cobwebs of 19th century American history and out fall today's crony-capitalists. Andrew Carnegie's biographer draws a direct line from the infamous "robber barons" to today's Republican crony-capitalists. There are Democratic crony-capitalists, too, but the lineage is...

The Dixie Chicks kept me company Saturday afternoon as I prepared for friends that evening. Like lots of their newest admirers, I came for the politics and stayed for their music. In a sea of profit-driven entertainment, it's easy to forget why we so desperately need our artists, whatever the...

Andrew Carnegie was once the richest man in the world. Three Presidents were said to have served under Andrew Mellon during his 10 years as U.S. Treasury Secretary (Harding, Coolidge and Hoover). Who cares? I do, because two brilliant historians have shown me a better way to understand today's crony-capitalists.

Why do we call it "jury duty"? Why not "jury service"? or better yet, "jury privilege"? It's easy to forget how recently all women and black men were denied this essential right of citizenship. So I'm delighted with the new U.S. Postal Service stamp celebrating juries. I especially like how...

The rush is over. I'm thinking about what enhanced my 2007 and will inform my 2008. Susan Faludi's _The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-911 America_ did both. Finally, here are answers to my nagging question about 9/11: Why did we go stark, raving, self-destructively mad? insulting our allies,...

Crèche is the word the French use for "day care." "One species taking care of the young of another" is how zoologists use it.

That singular Nazarene baby, born in Bethlehem, shares his first breath with the animals, as well as storied visitors - loving attendants each and all...

Why are the lines soooooooo long at my United States Post Office? Because the Postal Service is chronically short-handed. Why short-handed? Underfunded. Why underfunded? (Semi-)Privatized? Why (Semi-)Privatized? Because free market (self-designated) zealots want to privatized ALL government services ... the kleptocrats' rapturous dream.

Democracy is a public good, not a...

Corporations now are so powerful they threaten democracy and capitalism itself. Says who? Robert A.G. Monks*, a true capitalist-insider. His book Corpocracy was published yesterday; it would be difficult to overstate its importance. Mr. Monks knows where we went dangerously wrong, AND he's found a clear path out of this...

You get what you pay for ... if you're lucky. We bought a Prius last week. Great! We needed a spare key. Groan. Private enterprise has externalized so many costs onto customers that I actually gasped when a real, live, friendly person with a real name, greeted my call to...

Some years ago poet Robert Bly reminded me that it is in dark times that our light -- the light of truth -- is most needed. I am mindful of the many people who have withstood the fury of lies and deceits these past years, keeping the flame of truth...

Georgia has a severe water crisis and the Governor's response? Pray.

Pray if it suits you, but don't lie to the rain gods. Environmental anti-public policy in Georgia reflects the larger anti-government Republican agenda. They're aided and abetted by Democrats who also never met a developer-highway lobbyist they didn't love....

Lies are not only ugly, they have consequences. Grave consequences. Republicans have taken Americas for suckers, "screwed us," says John Dean in his Broken Government. While Republicans may not have cornered the market on lies, it's not for lack of trying, he shows. He pins his hopes for the future...