It’s completely implausible. Detroit is a wreck in all sorts of ways — the functional illiteracy of its people, its crime rate, the lack of upscale mass transit and a questionable bus system, its school system, the miles upon miles of neighborhoods with so many abandoned, burnt-out houses that the mayor wins plaudits for the speed of his demolitions, even the lack of a downtown shopping district with a flagship department store. But they’re still having a go at it,... Read more
The “soda tax” (or “soda pop tax” or “sweetened beverage tax”) is scheduled to end with a vote by the Cook County Commissioners tomorrow, though the tax itself will remain in place until December 1st. Whew — only a month and a half of having my husband do the pop-buying on his way home from work in Lake County. But I’d been meaning to share an observation, which is admittedly less relevant now, though still worth discussing, because Michael Bloomberg... Read more
Author Ta-Nehisi Coates got some pushback in the New York Times over the weekend in a column which is making the rounds on facebook and twitter, “How Ta-Nehisi Coates Gives Whiteness Power,” by Thomas Chatterton Williams. After discussing the “Sonderweg,” the German perception of the “special path” that led to Hitler, and the almost passive view of their past as an unavoidable fate, Williams describes the emerging view among activists and others, of white supremacy as a primordial American original... Read more
So once a month, my husband and I participate in a “CFM group” — that is, our parish’s equivalent to “small faith-sharing groups” but structured as Friday evening meetings where we go through a structured set of readings and discussion questions about some topic or another relating to Christian living, and then socialize. This past Friday, the discussion topic was fatherhood, and, of the younger couples in attendance — four couples with children ranging from infants to elementary school —... Read more
Paddock has gone to great lengths to ensure that there is no explanation -- nothing in e-mail, nothing in the home, nothing in his girlfriend's account -- that provides any information. Read more
That’s a folktale that shows up every now and again. It’s in the form of an Aesop fable, but not actually one. The short version of the tale (full version here) is that a scorpion asks a frog to carry him across a river. The dialog then goes: “Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly. “Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try... Read more
If you’re like me, your twitter feed and facebook timeline have been chock full of “if Trump really cared about the people of Puerto Rico, he’d waive the Jones Act,” followed by “if Trump really cared about the people of Puerto Rico, he’d waive the Jones Act for longer than 10 days” after he did, in fact, waive the Jones Act, that is, override the usual requirement that ships traveling from one US port to another be American-flagged ships. As Slate... Read more
Why has Puerto Rico been so debt-ridden? Read more
That’s the bottom line. President Trump says that NFL owners should fire players who refuse to stand for the national anthem: If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend! The NFL as an organization claims it’s all about free speech. And the number of players who kneel or otherwise protest during the anthem, transforming this act from some sort of generalized protest... Read more
In the 1960s, it was predicted that our workdays would be halved. Read more
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