Category: Current Affairs
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CSNY vs. GWB at WRA (A Concert Review)
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young rendered a rousing rock and roll revue that combined retrospection with rekindled rebellion at the White River Amphitheatre last night. While I don’t believe U.S. President George W. Bush was physically present at the concert, representations of him — including his words and actions (and their consequences) — were front…
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The Karma of Kindness: Unattributable and Inexplicable Generosity vs. Reciprocity
A recent Seattle Times article reported how Warm Acts of Kindness Catch On, highlighting a number of instances where unknown people treated others to coffee, dinner or cold bottles of water on the beach. Everyone involved in these acts feels good: the givers, the receivers and the people in between (e.g., baristas, restaurateurs and even…
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Hearts and Minds, Us and Them, War and Peace
Curtis Johnson shares some insightful — and potentially inciteful — views on new ways of thinking about — and acting on — the issue of terrorism in an article entitled "Towards Effective Global Influence". After starting off with a quote from Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson "Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and…
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The Health of Nations: Inequality, Stress and Dissatisfaction
Stephen Bezruchka wrote an article in Sunday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer noting the higher average health found in nations with more egalitarian distributions of wealth. The article, "Economic equality is best medicine" bore the subtitle "Health of societies mostly relies on political and economic policies, not the individual treatment of disease." Bezruchka notes that Japan has the…
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An Inconvenient Truth, and a Call to Action
For Father’s Day, our family went to see An Inconvenient Truth, a movie I wanted to see … and wanted my children to see. In the film, Al Gore poignantly highlights many of the disturbing impacts of global warming, including natural disasters, droughts, sea level rise, epidemic illnesses and species extinction. Gore makes a compelling…
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The Price of War … and Peace
The Seattle Times published an article yesterday on "What will war cost? Studies weigh oil prices, lost produtivity, more", based on two recent studies on the topic: "The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years after the Beginning of the Conflict" by Linda Bilmes (The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard…
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The Health of our Nation: CodeBlueNow
The Seattle Times printed an opinion piece today from two former governors on "Re-creating our health care system". Arne H. Carlson, a Republican and former governor of Minnesota, and Booth Gardner, a Democrat and former governor of Washington, highlight the instability in our current health care system in the US and the risks such instability…
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Guns and Levees
This week’s CounterSpin includes an interview with Will Bunch about the diversion of federal government funding from levee projects in southern Louisiana to the war effort in Iraq: New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with…
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Compassion, Judgment and Blame in the Wake of Katrina
Last night, on the America’s Public Media radio show Marketplace, I heard a story about "Survivor: Waveland", where a group of 100 residents in Waveland, MS, had taken refuge in the Coast Inn and Suites. One of the owners commented on a destitute woman in town who was always seen pushing her cart down the…
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One World: Disasters and Responses
Listening to, reading and watching news reports of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I’m struck by the refrain of terms that reminds me of human responses to other disasters, natural and man-made. Injuries, death, destruction, sickness, shortages of electricity, water, food, shelter and medical care, inadequate preparation and/or slow response by the authorities, refugees, refugee…