Whether I am ushered into the next world by a choir of cherubs or a bevy of trident-bearing imps, or whether I just compost quietly in nature’s great recycling system is not a matter on which I spend a great deal of thought. I am, by genetic endowment half-Jewish, by upbringing Roman Catholic, and by choice, agnostic. I neither deny nor assert the existence of God. I have seen the great comfort and goodness wrought by small churches of all persuasions in the small communities in which I have lived. I also see the hell-born misery ultra-orthodoxies of all religious types wreak on people the world over. Be it the Taliban, ultra-Orthodox Jews, the far-right Christians or the Sunni-Shiite internecine …
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I was what conservative business interests would have you believe is a “job creator.” I, and several very smart managers ran, and some still do, a company that worked with national clients. At our peak, we employed more than 250 Vermonters. Today the company employs fewer than 100, but not because its current owners are paralyzed by fear of taxes or regulation, but because the market has shrunk to that level and any company committed to its own survival must adjust its overheads to profitably match its revenues. I hate to disappoint you, but as president and part-owner I was not the “job creator.” The market was. We were entrepreneurs and an overheated consumer market created our jobs. Neither tax …
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In time and perhaps with age, we learn to doubt or at least question the predictions of gurus and futurists. Our landscapes are riddled with the remnants of “model communities” and retail and industrial endeavors that either turned out to be fads or investment pipedreams. Nature, or our “higher power,” or whomever we personally delegate with cosmic change, has a way of humbling our dreams and periodically reminding us of our rightful place in the universe. Tropical storm Irene,  recently did so, reminding us that our peaceable kingdom can be swept away. Watching the city of Detroit – decimated not by nature, but by man-made reversals of fortune – plow vacant residential communities under to make way for urban farming …
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 I recently read an editorial juxtaposing two disparate yet related visions that have haunted me, as any good op-ed should. The writer alluded to the crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square clamoring for democracy and free speech and to the crowds of American shoppers clamoring for Blu-Rays, Xboxes, and Wii consoles. The piece made me stop again and ask myself who and what we are becoming. Was the shopper who pepper-sprayed her competing shoppers as she charged a display of x-boxes really a sign of what we’ve become or just another nutcase? If we invested as much in observing our democratic rights and obligations as we do in consumption and the accumulation of wealth, would we not be the better for …
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On our occasional visits to England, we’ve taken up renting Landmark Trust properties, which are considerably less expensive than hotels, especially when friends and family join in. We usually rent an eccentric building such as a grange, hunting lodge, or folly. That comes with a kitchen, bath, bedrooms and medieval living quarters. We just returned from a weeklong stay at Wolveton, the 14th century stone gatehouse to a Tudor estate. The owner introduced himself the first day, evincing his life-long passion for spirits, his disdain for British animal rights types, hoi polloi from the former colonies, and modern conveniences. The latter was evident after we climbed the round oak staircase in the turret to our living room and realized he …
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We recently visited London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to see a show called “The Power of Making.” The show begins with this eloquent statement by its curator, Daniel Charny: “Making is the most powerful way that we solve problems, express ideas and shape our world. What and how we make defines who we are and communicates who we want to be. For many people, making is critical for survival, for others…a way of thinking, inventing and innovating. And for some it’s simply a delight to be able to shape a material and say, ‘I made that.’ The power of making is that it fulfills each of these human needs and desires.” Charny concluded by saying, “The knowledge of how to …
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 I think the heat-drunk garter snake living in our mail box is an omen. As I lower the battered cover and reach gingerly inside to get our mail, I wonder if the battered mailbox itself isn’t an artifact of a bygone era. The iconic US Postal system is bankrupt. Its valiant history calls up the pony express, postmen and women bearing parcels trudging through knee-deep Christmas snows, country stores with mailboxes on the wall. Could this all be history? Should it be? It makes little sense for thousands of postal workers to drive cars or vans, or push handcarts to every doorstep in America six days a week to deliver a handful of catalogs, magazines, credit card offers, sale flyers …
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There are many events in our lives that forge us as human beings, but in general, childhood play, early work, and exposure to death are among the most important. As a new grandfather, I’ve been thinking a lot about child-rearing, how it has changed and professionalized in a way that leaves many of our young adults pasteurized and ill-prepared for the germ warfare that is life on earth. We are prepared for life not so much by how we are raised, but by the examples our parents set for us, and by the risks we are encouraged to manage ourselves. The professionalization of child-rearing: the blogs, the books, the child-proofing specialists all ensure that our children will survive childhood, but …
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Labor Day is the last, long weekend of summer and a signal that it’s time to get back to work….that is if one has work, which takes us to the real meaning of Labor Day. Labor Day began unofficially in 1882 and was formally recognized as a federal holiday in 1894. It was a conciliatory outreach to organized labor after the lethal Pullman Strike in which federal marshals killed more than a dozen workers. We have little overt labor violence today , but labor’s once strong role in capitalism is now diminished. Official unemployment stands at 9%. Actual unemployment is almost double that according to the Washington Post. Other sources put the number broadly at one in five unemployed. There …
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