Disconnects between different levels of government make it challenging to address important challenges that confront American cities, such as fixing worn-out infrastructure. These issues require federal, state and city agencies to work together to identify funding – mostly from higher levels of government – and to plan and carry out projects.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, the word ‘hope’ was ubiquitous in Western politics. While its use in the Barack Obama presidential campaign has become iconic, appeal to hope was not limited to the United States: the Leftist Greek Syriza party relied on the slogan ‘hope is on the way’.
People can no longer leave sociocultural, as well as economic, decisions to a few controllers, while themselves concentrating on a range of personal problems from the search for shelter to a good vacation spot. We now need to admit that each of us must be concerned with the total situation of our society...
We are not larger than Life, and we cannot live apart from Life though we have tried mightily to do just that. Life is the only context within which we can understand what we need to do both to survive and...
Someone said to me the other day that people don't change... as in "a leopard doesn't change its spots". Is it possible for a murderer, an alcoholic, a liar, a thief to be "reformed"? Is it a case of genetics and thus people can't change?
It's hard to imagine wholesale changes to agriculture and food. Eating less meat is a shift that — in small ways — is already occurring. A recent poll in the Netherlands showed that well over half of consumers...
Everyone is looking for solutions to the gridlock that grips Washington. Most suggestions are complicated. But there’s a simple step that could move our Congress in the right direction. We could stop seating the parties on opposite sides of the aisle...
We have a choice. We can futilely try to protect ourselves and our families behind high walls, electric gates, etc., and turn a blind eye toward chronic human rights violations and an economic globalization that is not accountable to anyone. Or we can join with people and organizations from all the world's nations to lay the foundations for...
Rigidity in our beliefs and behaviors is the greatest threat to our own survival and the survival of all that we've come to love in civilization. Ultimately, the question we have to ask is if our systems of politics and economy are flexible enough to become sustainable...
The Iroquois tell of a Peacemaker prophet who walked the lands many years ago trying to convince the warring nations to give up their blood feud ways. The first Clan Mother convinced her people to listen to the prophetic words, and they established the Great Law of Peace.
If Democrats want to retake government, they will need to do more than be the party that isn’t as bad as Trump, starting with closing the wealth gap.
Many Americans remain in shock and outrage, unable to grasp how a man who told bald-faced lies, who ridiculed and defamed others, and who boasted of sexual assault could yet ascend to the presidency of the United States.
We worry about the condition of the world we will leave to our children, while our children worry about how they will clean up the messes we will leave behind. Increasingly, people all over the globe are coming to the conclusion that we must make radical changes...
How to effect regime change without war was demonstrated by the nonviolent revolution in India led by Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi pioneered satyagraha, the resistance of tyranny through mass nonviolent civil disobedience. Positive change occurs when committed people work for it...
Imagine a company that has to fire and hire 3,000 key employees every four or eight years.
The parallels are striking. In the last decades of the nineteenth century – the so-called “Gilded Age”— America experienced inequality on a scale it had never before seen, combining wild opulence and searing poverty.
Culture is the result of thousands, upon millions, upon billions of tiny, mundane choices made by individuals. We are embedded in our culture. We participate in its creation through a thousand quotidian decisions...
Washington doesn’t think very highly of the American people, a study of 850 non-elected officials and others working in the nation’s capital concludes.
Historian Jack Rakove says that the presidency has emerged as the strongest of all three branches of the US government, due to partisanship in Congress.
If Donald Trump continues to implode, Hillary Clinton will win simply by being the presidential candidate who isn’t Trump.
This was once a referendum about whether or not the UK should remain in the EU. But not anymore. The referendum has effectively turned into a plebiscite about diversity and tolerance vs divisiveness and hatred
September 2026 begins at a powerful turning point as eclipse season winds down and...
Letting go of the past doesn’t mean forgetting what happened. It means releasing the...
How much of yesterday are you still carrying today?
In a world of swipes, matches, texts and disappearing conversations, sometimes the most...
Some temptations don't announce themselves as trouble. They arrive softly, offering...
What if the rules women grew up with were never really rules at all? The Invisible Cage...
What does freedom mean when the nearest emergency room is forty miles away? “Forty Miles...
Fears about the future often stem from past experiences, leading to...
A strong relationship thrives on unconditional surrender, trust, and a commitment to...
Why do we keep doing things we know aren't good for us? The answer may have less to do...
You already know you're tired. You've known it since you hit snooze for the third time...
The concept of hell has evolved significantly from ancient Greek and Roman literature to...