Rage Against Rage?

Posted on 14 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 10 Comments

The situations have been coming on strong for years, but they seem to be peaking. Everywhere you visit on the internet, and sometimes even in public, we all run into someone who can take any subject and make it into a kind of right-wing rant:

“Sure is hot today!”
“That’s not evidence of global warming!”

It wasn’t long ago that characters and attitudes like this were the domain of the other side – those who were against The System, The Man, The Establishment, They. Has everything flipped, or is this all one big phenomenon?

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Obligations

Posted on 12 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 5 Comments

In the ecstasy of the moments after the winning goal of the world cup, Andres Iniesta was outside of himself. Yelling, screaming, mad with adrenaline and victory, he stripped off his shirt in a popular gesture. But Iniesta had another shirt underneath that read Dani Jarque siempre con nosotros – Dani Jarque is always with us, a tribute to a teammate who died suddenly of a heart attack a year ago. Ecstasy meeting tragedy became a triumph. That’s the nature of our obligation to those who have gone on before us, a calling not just to the departed but to our better selves – and a deeper appreciation of the moments we have.

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All Politics is Local

Posted on 9 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 6 Comments

Do you remember the good old days? Yeah, there never were any good old days. Everything has always been a struggle, leadership has never really been what the legends tell us, and people have always been just people. Yet in narrow little areas it’s sometimes possible to look back and find that maybe we didn’t know just how good we had it. I was going to write a piece called “Where have all the good Republicans gone?” but somehow Tip O’Neill’s book “All Politics is Local” was calling to me instead. No, I’m not going to dump on Republicans here. We all bad.

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Job Creation

Posted on 7 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 13 Comments

July means many things. There’s heat, thunderstorms, fireworks, and kids having a chance to just be kids. If you’re interested in economics, however, July means that the second half of the year and the third quarter are starting – time for some new stats to start rolling out! If that doesn’t sound like a good time to you, just wait – you haven’t seen the lack of fun in the stats themselves.

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Family Time

Posted on 5 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 6 Comments

It’s a Monday holiday, and the kids are just getting going on brunch. It’s not all that special, but on a day when they can sleep in we can share a big meal together right away in the morning. Scallions and kielbasa are chopped, eggs stuffed into the blender, and a small debate ensues about what kind of spices go down early in the morning. A sprinkle of coriander and basil later, and the stove is gurgling with another family meal in the making.

Heaps of quantity time – and food – are what holidays and families are all about.

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