This Thanksgiving we are thankful that the light of our American democracy still shines. Much of the media in the period from Labor Day in September until the midterm elections on November 8 was consumed with politically-related coverage. That coverage featured stories about: an American people who were polls and poles apart; crazies and conspiracy theorists; threats and intimidations of election officials and workers; voter suppression versus voter expression; lawsuits alleging fraud … [Read more...]

  In 1984, the American rock band Talking Heads released a classic live album titled Stop Making Sense. That album featured songs such as Psycho Killer, Burning Down the House, and Life During Wartime. That album title could be America’s new national anthem as those cuts are emblematic of the politically and socially divided times in which we Americans find ourselves today. We are living in a country in which truth has become fiction, conspiracy theories have … [Read more...]

  Public education is one of the primary pillars on which this American democracy was built during the 19th and 20th centuries. In this 21st century, especially over the past few years, public education has been pilloried. The question becomes what is the future for public education in the U.S.? To determine that let’s examine its history, current status, and the challenges and opportunities for public education going forward. Public Education … [Read more...]

    January 6, 2021 is a date that will be remembered in American history. This will be the case because of the storming of the halls of Congress by a mob of insurrectionists intent on impeding the democratic process. January 6, 2011 will not be remembered. But there was something that happened in Congress then as well which tells us something about the nature of our American democracy. On that date, near the outset of the newly assembled 112th Congress, members of the … [Read more...]

  72% of the 198 panelists polled by National Association for Business Economics (NABE) in early August predicted that the United States would be in a recession by the middle of 2023. 19% of those surveyed felt the economy is already in a recession. There is no certainty in either of those assessments. There is a certainty, however, that a recession would lead to the deaths of small businesses and precipitate the births of small businesses as well. The small business deaths will be … [Read more...]

  The outbreak of Monkeypox in the United States continues to worsen. It has been declared a national health emergency and the federal government is taking steps to reduce its spread through vaccinations. Moneypox in our country also continues to worsen. We define moneypox as an infectious condition of the American economy in which those with considerable wealth get richer and those of lesser means get poorer. There are and will be no vaccinations that can be used to … [Read more...]

  This is the third part of a three-part series on News in America. Part 1 provided the consumers’ perspective on the news. Part 2 presented journalists’ thoughts and industry data. This part sets out improvement recommendations… The News in America is in trouble. Consumers think that. Journalists think that. It is time to rewrite that story because, as discussed in our earlier blogs, the news has been in a downward trajectory in this 21st century. If that trajectory … [Read more...]

  This is the second part of a three-part series on News in America. Part 1 provided the consumers’ perspective on the news. This part outlines journalists’ thoughts and industry data. Part 3 will present improvement recommendations. News in America is in trouble. It is “struggling” and in “chaos.” Those descriptors are not ours, but words of journalists who participated in a Pew Research Center survey (Pew) of nearly 12,000 U.S.-based journalists conducted in the … [Read more...]

  I’ve Got a Secret was an American TV panel game show that ran from the early ‘50‘s to the later 60’s. On the show, the panel tried to guess the secret of a contestant by asking a series of questions. More than one-half a century later, we do not have to ask investigative journalist Amanda Ripley any questions to guess her secret. In the opening of her widely circulated Washington Post column, she tells us: “I have a secret. I kept it hidden for longer than I … [Read more...]

  This nation came into being because it won The Revolutionary War fought with Great Britain from 1775 to 1783. The United States of America itself was officially established in 1787 with the signing of the Constitution. In the decades and centuries since then, citizens have won hard-fought battles for equality in An Evolutionary War to create the “more perfect union” envisioned in the preamble to the Constitution. In 2022, we are in the midst of A Devolutionary … [Read more...]