My neighbor, James G. March, wrote a little book entitled The Ambiguities of Experience*. March is emeritus professor in the departments of business, political science, and sociology at Stanford University. Continue reading
Blog Posts and Writings Tagged: social issues
Blog 64. New rigor in education?
New research in education actually looks not only at test scores, but uses technologies of videos and eyeball-detection hardware to compile data on when kids pay attention and how learning takes place. But there are also other, more political, movements to reform public education. Continue reading
Blog 62. Conspiracy theories—making politics crazy.
As reported in Scientific American (Dec. 2014) two political scientists* at the University of Miami find that about one-third of Americans believe Obama is a foreigner, and about as many believe that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job” by the Bush administration. Continue reading
Blog 61. Making sense of mayhem in Ferguson
What happened in Ferguson, Missouri? And is this important to the nation? Continue reading
Blog 59. Medicare, Medicaid, Medigap, and Affordable Whatever
The new national health insurance, officially the named the Affordable Care Act, is commonly called “Obamacare” because that’s a way to reduce a complex issue to one word. Continue reading
Blog 55. Democracy and bankruptcy
Do all democracies drive themselves into bankruptcy?
In recent years we’ve seen cities descend into bankruptcy. Continue reading
Blog 54. Money, McCutcheon, and the Supreme Court
What happened?
On Wednesday, April 2, 2014, the Supreme Court issued its decision on the McCutcheon case, in which Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee claimed that the Federal Election Campaign Act restricted his freedom of speech. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court agreed that limitation of political spending limits personal speech. Continue reading
Blog 52. Aging in America—a systems question?
Last week, I reviewed Julian Barnes’ story of an aging, retired man named Tony Webster. Webster lives alone, remembers regrettable events of his youth, suffers remorse when he encounters the living and ghostly persons of his past, and still does not find a way to heal the hurts or to generate meaning in his life. Perhaps, as his former girlfriend says, he “just doesn’t get it.”
Does today’s youth-oriented culture—a functioning system—regard older people as irrelevant, as those who no longer “get it?” Continue reading