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All about the standing-upright chimps that really love to talk about themselves.

Bigger America

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The classic American road trip is a great experience for a lot of good reasons. More than the core of great novels and movies, it’s usually a journey of inner discovering and bonding and so much else all at once. At the core, however, is one undeniable lesson – this is a truly vast and amazing nation.

The best measure of how stuck in a rut this nation have become is how much that obvious fact has been forgotten. I promise you that the United States is bigger than you or I can ever possibly imagine. But to listen to today’s media or politics of any kind you’d swear that this nation is weak, fragile, and small.

We need a road trip. Short of that, let’s take one in our minds.

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Mary Tyler Moore

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Mary Tyler Moore died on Tuesday at age 80. She was a remarkable person in many ways and truly groundbreaking as a cultural icon for an entire generation. It’s almost hard to understand just how important her work was, however, because she did it with such cool professionalism and care.

When James Garner died in 2014, I reflect on how he defined what it meant to be a man for me as a child. It is only fitting that I do the same for Mary Tyler Moore, who introduced me at the same age to what it meant to be a woman in today’s world. It was at least as important, if not much moreso, in shaping who I am as a person.

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It’s All History

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As we prepare to inaugurate our nation’s second genuine psychopathic president, Andrew Jackson being the first, it’s better to look back on happy times.  Back in 2009 Barataria was celebrating by … well, strangely looking forward to something like today.  Judge for yourself.

During the many lulls in inaugural coverage, CNN knew what would dazzle ‘em.  They had their satellite image of everyone standing around in the cold waiting for The Moment – the time when Obama would formally be worn in.  Huddled around giant screens you could see the black specs, which the CNN crew dutifully told us “look just like ants!”  Yes, from a distance, we are small, but doesn’t that miss the point just a little?  It seems to me that when the great Wheel of History appears to be turning, we have one day where we should not be focusing on where we are on the rim, but on the progress of the great Wheel itself.

That’s why I started rummaging though all the ancient texts in my library.

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Bread and Circuses

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Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things – bread and circuses!

– Juvenal, Satire X, “Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering”

The “Fall of Rome” trope has always been an easy one to dismiss. After all, we’re stronger and more connected than they ever were, yes? The public is more literate, our history is stronger, and times are simply different than they were back so very long ago.

Aren’t they?

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Economy of People

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It’s a bizzy return-to-work week, and I don’t know how to say this any better.  This post, from 2013, is presented just as it was because so much of it is relevant.  This was elaborated on at length in my discussion series People’s Economics in 2015, but this is the summary.  I still believe that this is what we should be talking about rather than the nonsense which passes for “politics” today – and that nearly everyone is utterly missing the ability to analyze what is happening around all of us in any useful way.

The economic teachings of Pope Francis are a hot topic. People feel a need to weigh in on what he said whether they understand it or not. But it’s the simple fact that so many don’t understand where this comes from that is probably the most important point in the public debate.

To sum it up: Money should work for people, and not the other way around. That shouldn’t be controversial, but having forgotten this way of looking at things is may be at the heart of economic and social cycles. The simple answer is that it’s time we remembered. More to the point, that philosophy is at the heart of American tradition going back to our earliest days.

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