"American democracy will work and reform will prove possible only if obligations join rights at center stage." So writes Richard Haass. We agree, and discuss what they should be...

04 March, 2023

So many of our current disputes between left and right ultimately come down to differing definitions of just one word: freedom. Which is not surprising because, with apologies to Kris Kristofferson, it means *everything* to lose...

15 February, 2023

Republicans know from the four years they were in power that there's no need for debt ceiling to put the US or us through the roof--solutions abound, with or without them...

14 February, 2023

ChatGPT may disagree, but artificial human intelligence continues to be a greater threat to our way of life than AI, while the real thing remains the best antidote to the potential toxicity of both...

03 February, 2023

We remember three good citizens (and then three more) who left us in body in 2022, but not in spirit, as well as the works and inspiration they left behind for us to build on...

12 January, 2023

Fall is the time when high school and college graduates return to their almae matres and come together to share what they've learned and hope for. The recent elections felt something like a homecoming on the political and existential front: are they?...

10 January, 2023

January 6th has become a day that will live in infamy, but thanks to the man who uttered those words about the first such occasion, there's another, better reason to remember and act on it...

04 January, 2023

Merriam-Webster chose "gaslighting" as theirs, but to us, this was the year when our country finally started cooking with gas again, and "democracy" had to be the word for that...

13 December, 2022

If love of it is, as the Bible says, "the root of all evil," what does it mean that we as a nation value money so much? And what might we choose as our cultural currency instead?...

09 December, 2022

All across America, Trump-backed candidates did something last month he's never been able to do himself--give a concession speech. And the other concessions generated in his name are getting stale...

05 December, 2022
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