Like many others, I think the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer colloquy on The Daily Show was a great, straightforward explication of some of the issues that have caused the recent financial havoc in the financial markets and more important, how the screaming heads on tee vee threw fuel (by which I mean, our retirement funds) on […]
Another too-warm Vermont winter sputters to an end. My backyard, bereft of snow, is a mottled greenish-brown. Over in Montpelier, America’s smallest state capital, legislators – about to return after town meeting recess – are bogged down (as are their counterparts across the nation) trying to cut spending quickly enough to keep pace with the […]
All politics is local. So is news. The news need not be geographically local, but if the events have a direct effect on my life, then I consider them to be newsworthy. For months, we’ve read about the economic crisis and how Wall Street money masters screwed everything to a fair-thee-well, then took taxpayer money, […]
Before his execution, Socrates was visited in prison by his friend Crito, who told him the bribes for the guards were ready and Socrates could escape whenever he wished. Socrates refused to go. Crito, angered, argued Socrates would a) leave his children orphans and b) bring shame on his friends, because people would assume they […]
I Want More
The day after Christmas, the New York Times published a column by Judith Warner in which she discusses the ethics of using cognition-enhancing drugs beyond the boundaries of their prescriptions. The drugs in question – Ritalin, Adderall and Provigil – are prescribed for attention-deficit disorder (the first two) or narcolepsy (the third). People unafflicted, however, […]