Monthly Archives: April 2018

Pete McCloskey speaks out on Earth Day

Disclosure: Pete McCloskey, of whom I wrote in my last blog, is married to a friend of mine. The real founder of Earth Day in 1970 was a great progressive Democrat, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. He wanted Earth Day, set for April 22nd, the same day as Arbor Day, to be a bipartisan and […]

“Please, Sir, I want some more.”

“I know how much is enough,” a friend of mine once said to me. “It’s just a little more than you have right now.” And that, in two short simple sentences, is what drives the American Dream. Or at least it did until recently, when many dreamers woke up to find that a few people […]

Revisiting and revising the American dream

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961. It has become increasingly clear that many Americans no longer buy into the American dream. From the perspective of national unity and morale, this is not […]

Eat, Drink and Be Merry. Just Don’t Get Sick

Yesterday 24/7 Wall Street published a piece on the “Most (and Least) Healthy Countries in the World.”The rankings are based on an index that measures four variables: “life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and incidence of tuberculosis.” The ten healthiest countries include the usual suspects from Scandinavia (Iceland #1; Finland #2; Sweden #7; and Norway #8), […]

The Strangers’ Gate: An Anti-Wall Concept

Up near the northwest corner of New York’s Central Park, across from the intersection of 106th Street and Central Park West, stands The Strangers’ Gate, one of 20 named entrances to the park, which was designed in 1858 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. If you pass through the gate and climb the 77 […]