During World War II, my grandfather was killed when a submarine hit his ship off the coast of North Africa. My mother never got to meet her dad and of course, neither did I.
Last week, the U.S. fired its first torpedo since World War II, also sinking a vessel in the Indian Ocean. I’m assuming among the 83 dead, there were men who will never meet their grandchildren either.…
When I was younger, I benefitted directly from food stamps. My mom was raising three children on her own off of wages and tips earned from her job as a bartender. There was also a period when she was battling cancer and could earn no money at all.
Even then as a small boy, I felt the stigma of receiving food stamps; recalling specific times when I was told we couldn’t have a specific food item because we either couldn’t afford it or it wasn’t covered.…
“That was everything I wasn’t expecting.”
Those were the first words my daughter uttered after getting off The Lock Ness Monster rollercoaster last week. Her face reflected the familiar residuals of joy, thrill, and terror.
We had just arrived at the theme park and remarkably there was no line. So we threw caution to the wind and jumped on without noticing the multiple vertical loops and steep drops.…
This morning I read a story about Captain James Stagg, the chief meteorological advisor to General Eisenhower and the man responsible for making the “go” or “no go” call for the invasion of Normandy. As the article lays out it was an incredibly complex decision not merely dependent on “good weather” on the day of the invasion but required various favorable conditions related to visibility, low tides, phase of the moon, and wind speeds over the course of multiple days.…
Years ago, I read an eye-opening book called, The Submerged State. Its premise was that one of the chief reasons we don’t value the role of government is because its work and effects are too often invisible to us. The prime example was the oft cited quote “Keep your government hands off my Medicare,” – a reflection of an angry citizen not realizing that Medicare was in fact a government program.…
Over the last several years, I’ve made it a bit of a custom to read, listen or watch something by or about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the holiday that celebrates his life. In the past few years, I’ve listened to his “I Have a Dream” speech, re-read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and watched Selma and documentaries about his life.
This year I re-watched the movie, Boycott.…
Water can freeze and become ice. Ice can melt and become water again. Water can be heated and evaporates into gas. Matter constantly changing states of being.
Our emotions can similarly transform into different states, often affected similarly by turning up or down the temperature or introducing other factors that bring tension and transformation.
At the same time, much of transformation and metamorphosis comes down to what is happening internally, a level most often invisible to the eye.…
During the fourth game of the World Series between two long time rivals – the Yankees and Dodgers, there was a long pause.
In unison, the players from both teams, umpires, crew and the almost 50,000 fans stood. Each held a placard with a name on it – representing the person they were standing up for who had – or is – battling cancer. It was part of a national effort from the organization Stand Up to Cancer.…
This weekend two million students who attend land-grant universities returned from Thanksgiving break. A few short days later will mark the end of Native American Heritage month.
I suspect that most of these students, like I once was until recently, are oblivious to the connection.
A few years ago, I was granted the opportunity and honor to give the commencement address at my alma mater, Penn State University. …
I was sitting unsure of what I would write today when my dog Scout began to bark. What exactly he was barking at was unclear to me.
By dog standards, Scout is not an awful barker. He barks when he senses a dog that he cannot see or sniff. Most often this involves dogs out for a walk across the street that he longingly sees while perched on our couch.…
Understandably, we can be prone to seeing and focusing on the problems around us. I myself have succumbed to this bias of problems over solutions with some regularity. Anyone who follows the daily news might fall in the same sinking boat. After all, we’ve grown up in an era of “if it bleeds it leads.” Even my former literary agent once told me that books about problems sell better than those that offer solutions.…
Last week while walking my dog, I noticed what I thought was one of those awesome free standing “Lending Library” kiosks.
However as I approached, I saw that this one did not include a single book. Rather, it was filled with canned goods and other non-perishable food items. The sign at the top read, “Take What You Need.”
The presence of such a structure was both a sign of our difficult economic times and a refreshing public display of community kindness.…
As July 4th approached, I was reflecting on the state of our country. JFK’s famous exhortation from his inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for our country,” popped into my mind.
In lieu of recent events, one could look at the first part of that quote and conclude that what little we have asked for from our country has been denied.…
Spiderman came to Hastings this week. More specifically, Tom Holland was in my town shooting a new anthology series for Apple TV. Throngs of kids lined up in a marked off area to catch a glimpse of him. When he finally arrived, clad in period 70’s garb, they screamed. Calling out his name, filming his every move, clamoring for him to come by and say hello – which to his credit he did.…
As part of preparing to give the commencement speech at my alma mater, I talked with a university archivist to better understand various parts of our school’s history.
One specific area of interest was the school’s founding as a land grant university. I had planned to speak with pride that I was the beneficiary of this act of Congress that enabled states to fund public colleges.…
As Independence Day approached, I decided to google the root word “depends.” The origin of “depends” goes back to the Latin terms “de” meaning down and “pendere” meaning “hang.” Hence the dual and often conflicting definition of both “needing or requiring support” (e.g. “I depend on you”) and “undecided or open to influence” (e.g.“It depends”)
Many Americans have a strong aversion to the idea of dependency or even its softer cousin, “interdependency.” …
These are hard.
What would you take for yourself, that you know would help someone else more?
What would you give your child, that if you gave to another child instead would dramatically change their life?
These philosophical questions are ones that we don’t explicitly ask ourselves. They are by design difficult to answer. They pit our egalitarian principles and a belief in a fair world against our most basic desire to provide and protect ourselves and those we love. …
This Land is Your Land. America the Beautiful. Amazing Grace. Land of Hopes and Dreams. Here Comes the Sun. Lovely Day. Better Days. Let the Sunshine In. Feeling Good. Undivided
This was the score that played over the course of two days last week as our democracy witnessed a peaceful transfer of power without further incidence of the uncivil war we find ourselves trying to end.…
I struggled with figuring out what to write this week. Conflicting instincts pulled me to either express rage at the events at the Capitol last week and look back at all that led up to it or to move past them and share some thoughts of hope or even beauty.
Stuck in the middle, I remembered this quote from the movie Wall Street. “Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him.…
Consider this. If you voted in the Presidential election, then regardless of its outcome, there would be 70 million people who disagreed with you. These are not 70 million idiots, socialists, extremists, racists, or rioters. They are your fellow Americans who have different lived experiences, concerns and priorities than you. People who receive their information from different sources than you and are often surrounded by similar folks that reinforce their opinions, knowledge and biases.…
In the 2016 election, over 110 million Americans who were eligible to vote did not. To be more precise, 110,178,918, people over the age of eighteen sat out a race that was decided by less than 80,000 votes.
To put that in further perspective, it is the equivalent of the entire eligible voting populations of the United Kingdom, France AND Belgium deciding not to vote in their respective elections. …
In a year defined by sickness, this week has been particularly so.
There are many forms of sickness of which I speak. The obvious one is the coronavirus – whose toll mounts despite having the means right in front of us to control it. Less obvious is the sickness in our politics and civil discourse – not just between members of different political parties but within our families and amongst our friends. …
Are you a person of integrity?
Before you answer this question, consider these two definitions of the word integrity.
“The firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values.” (Merriam Webster)
“The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change.” (Cambridge)
The key characteristic of both definitions is not the presence of moral principles or a strong moral code but it is the fact that there is a firm adherence to them and that we refuse to change them.…
The Constitutional Convention led to the creation of our democracy. The Seneca Falls Convention was the start of the women’s suffrage movement. The Geneva Convention was a series of meetings that led to more humane treatment during times of armed conflict.
Conventions can be events that unite us, that bring together diverse groups with a shared goal and — as the examples above show — lead to important progress.…
One of the defining American debates is the ongoing question of Public vs. Private. Another way to think of it is — what is mine vs. what is ours? This question runs through issues related to economics, rights, education, health, property and so on.
Some see these ideas of public and private mostly at odds. An example of zero-sum thinking (see here for a great summary of research on how this thinking plays out politically). …
