Home

Roxane Gay wrote a July 17 New York Times piece asking why people are so awful to each other online, suggesting it could be due to the role of loneliness and the insufficiency of cyberspace as an adequate substitute for in person connections.  Heather Cox Richardson followed up with additional questions about the horrible ways… Read more

To my subscribers. Once again I published without my editor’s final proof reading. You would think I’d learn. Anyway, the Is the Church Dying column as posted on the website has been updated to correct stuff, mostly. Mea culpa.

There is a no more dependable perennial than the annual blossoming of angst over the decline and imminent death of the church.  Every denomination grows its own variety, mine is from the Episcopal Church.  Yes, church attendance has been in decline for decades, and it saddens me as much as it does anyone. The perennial… Read more

Where were we?  Oh yeah; the previous column was about metaphorical bubbles, silos and castles that exist in the physical reality of our daily lives, but over the last few decades we’ve also come to live in the virtual reality of cyberspace and cable t.v.  Friend Tom and I have been wondering about the difference… Read more

Friend Tom and I were messing around with the idea of bubbles, silos and castles to help explain the dynamics of political polarization that appear to have brought us close to a cultural cold civil war.  That we live in a politically polarized society is axiomatically true.  Most often it’s characterized as left vs. right,… Read more

Not too long ago, I came across an article on the American economy arguing that it was fueled by a reliance on poverty and the threat of poverty. Sadly, I can’t find it again and offer apologies to its author, whoever she or he may be. We’ve known for several decades that low wage jobs,… Read more