The title of this post is the conventional sound made by turkeys before they are processed and served up on Thanksgiving tables. But this odd sound seems to be drowned out by the metaphorical gobbling up of merchandise taking place on and immediately after Thanksgiving Day. It has been serious enough in recent times but promises to get even louder this year, [says](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SVwXA7sHUlE) the NYTimes. > There was an outcry last year when some retailers opened at midnight on Thanksgiving, with workers and shoppers saying the holiday should be reserved for family, not spent lining up for the start of… Read More
Continue ReadingNot Only for Liberals
The best 3 minute summary of everything that happened on Tuesday I have seen.
Continue ReadingPost-election Blues
It didn’t take long to get over my relief following the results of Tuesday’s election. Great outcomes nationally, here at home in Massachusetts, and in Maine where I spend the summer. It turns out, the votes seem to indicate that we are a bluer nation, according to the networks color schemes. Blue is the wrong metaphor because there surely were more happy people than sad. A redder nation would signify an angrier nation, and, except for the discredited and mostly wrong Republican pundits, happiness outweighed anger. My observations, during an election cycle, are always badly distorted both by my own… Read More
Continue ReadingInequality and More Plain Talk
Last evening, I went to listen to Robert Putnam speak on inequality and its horrific consequences. Putnam, whose work is, perhaps, the most revealing about the state of society in the US of any current American political scientist, was giving a lecture in Lexington’s public lecture series. His earlier book, *Bowling Alone*, revealed the drastic loss of social capital, the resources that hold any society together. His talk, last evening, focused on his current project, measuring inequality in American culture today. He began with a couple of caveats, he was not talking about income or wealth inequality; he was talking… Read More
Continue ReadingHalloween Horrors and Hypocrisy
The last of the neighborhood children are dribbling in, ready to reach into the proffered bowl of candy and stuff a few more unhealthy calories into their sacks. As the end of October approaches each year, I go through the same mental gyrations. Should I fight the fakery of Halloween and leave the front lights off or should I give in and play into the hands of Mars and Hershey, and bribe the kids with candy? Candy usually wins because I enjoy seeing the kids who show up; they are usually gone off to school before I take my morning… Read More
Continue ReadingSandy’s Positive Power
Sandy is coming, but when and how strong? She is the biggest, in terms of the affected area, of any hurricane in historical records. I am sitting in front of my computer wondering when the screen will go black and I get disconnected from one of my several worlds. Some people around Cape Cod have already lost power and have been told it may be three days before the lights go back on. New York City is literally shutting down. All of a sudden, the power of nature shows up against the everyday consciousness that we are her masters. And… Read More
Continue ReadingWicked Problems
After my post yesterday, I got a comment that my argument that pragmatism is the only framework for dealing with the always messy problems of real life is mistaken. Mike argued that pragmatism can lead only to fallible truths or propositions and any absolute-sounding such as I made is self-contradictory in this sense. I agree, but only on the surface. It does sound paradoxical, but I still believe it is true in a pragmatic sense. For me, I cannot see a better way to go. Pragmatism does work in complex situations. Any other formulation or philosophical basis I know about… Read More
Continue ReadingSustainability, Politics, and Pragmatism
I know that everyone is sated with political talk at this point in the election cycle, but I cannot get away from it. You have probably guessed where I will come down on Election Day; my choice of Obama is completely clear to me. I have many points in my path to this choice, but let me focus on just one, one that is tightly bound to my concerns for sustainability. Obama has been called a pragmatist before and since he became President in both a positive and pejorative sense. For me, this descriptor is both positive and essential. The… Read More
Continue ReadingPlain Talk (redux)
I beat the NYTimes by a few days. Check out this column. Here’s the opening paragraph. > IMAGINE a presidential candidate who spoke with blunt honesty about American problems, dwelling on measures by which the United States lags its economic peers. That’s it.
Continue ReadingPlain Talk
I often write about authenticity as an essential attribute for flourishing and hence, for sustainability. Although this quality has great import in the model of human being I associate with flourishing, it is difficult to observe in action, and virtually impossible to recognize in a single event. Only the actor really can tell if he or she is acting out of true caring, metaphorically responding to an inside voice; not following the voices of the surrounding world. But, in place of interpreting some physical action, is it possible to listen to the actor’s words and assess how well they are… Read More
Continue Reading