LATEST BLOG POSTS

This week I finished: Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, by Akhil Reed Amar: I came across Amar almost a year ago, learning about US Founders and Lincoln. By then I had finished biographies on Lincoln, Jefferson, and others, and was moving on to Madison. Here are the first videos I watched of him. My most important message on Amar and this book: The Constitution, Declaration, people who wrote them[…] Keep reading →

President Ronald Reagan said in 1986: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” The quote has an appeal. Many Americans loved him. He was in his second term. I’ve been reading about slavery, abolitionism, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. One part seemed relevant: when the Union army liberated slaves from captivity. Were they not from the government, there[…] Keep reading →

I’m not trying to make lots of headlines about this pattern, but I don’t want to revise past posts. I’m not looking for these killed trees. On the contrary, that I can’t avoid them suggests how many we kill, ostensibly to celebrate life and the birth of someone who promoted loving your neighbor as yourself. Hours after posting The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the Season?, which wasn’t my last[…] Keep reading →

I’ve already written a few posts this year wondering if I’ve seen the last discarded trees, but we cut down so many, it takes this long to discard them all. We could have left them standing. It’s almost April and people pay to chop down so many trees, I’ve seen them thrown out this month. I think I’ve seen the last for the season so I’ll post the last images[…] Keep reading →

I found a piece that expanded on something I wrote in Sustainability Simplified about how racism developed. Since I found that we needed to change culture to restore sustainability, I’ve been learning about abolitionism and related issues, since abolitionism is an example of humans changing global culture where no one thought it possible, then it happened, started by a small number of visionary people. In my book, I wrote: Oxford-educated[…] Keep reading →

Paul Ehrlich died two weeks ago. I read The Population Bomb a while ago and heard him speak in many interviews. I recently listened again to a few recordings of his and read a few articles of him. In each he was speaking to people who liked him and agreed with him so he spoke freely. In each he called people who disagreed with him “idiots” or something like “people[…] Keep reading →

The Washington Post‘s Climate Coach column by Michael Coren quoted me today. Scroll down in the image or pdf below and you’ll see my comments on an app designed for packaged food and doof. They had to edit for space (asking permission, of course). Here’s the full text I wrote: Hi, I recommend a solution I prefer to Yuka, which doesn’t work for me since I don’t buy packaged food.[…] Keep reading →

I attended an event in midtown by Trump Plaza in midtown over the weekend. A friend who is very liberal said how uncomfortable the space made her feel. She also mentioned how she just got back from Mexico and planned to return there, as well as New Orleans, in the next few months. I didn’t point out to her how much of the cost of her plane tickets is funding[…] Keep reading →

It’s difficult to empathize with people we disagree with. It’s difficult to look at the world as if you knew only what they knew and nothing of what you know that they didn’t. Many people seem unable to distinguish understanding and empathizing with someone from agree with or supporting them. I think part of our inhibition comes from fearing that we’ll find that we would have felt and done things[…] Keep reading →