If there ever was a misnomer, social media is it. When social media first came on the scene in 1997, it was supposed to be an electronic platform for bringing us closer together — a way for friends, family, and like minds to network. As it evolved, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others were going to be the means for elevating our communications. In many instances it has achieved those ends. Unfortunately, in many instances it has not, and a segment of what transpires in the … [Read more...]

  From March 2021 to March 2022, wages for the American worker grew by 5.6%. Juliana Kaplan and Madison Hoff of Business Insider state, “Over the past year, wages have been skyrocketing as employers try to staff up…” For the week ending March 19, jobless claims fell by 28,000 to 187,000. According to Matt Ott of the Associated Press (AP), that is “the lowest since September of 1969.” On April 12, AP business writers Paul Wiseman, Anne D’Innocenzio and Mae Anderson … [Read more...]

    The Critical Shortage of Teachers, Truckers and Tradespeople. The first quarter of 2022, provided conflicting signals regarding the condition of employment in America. 678,000 new jobs were added in February according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This far exceeded the expected job growth of around 400,000. Nonetheless, the BLS also reported that “The number of job openings was little changed at 11.3 million on the last business day of … [Read more...]

    On January 6, 2020 a secessionist mob invaded the U.S. Capitol and unsuccessfully tried to overthrow a free and fair election. That should have been a pivot point for concerned Americans of all stripes to unite and put their country first instead of their party. Sadly, it was not. On, February 24, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine in a to-date unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the legitimate democratic government of that nation. Unexpectedly, that outrageous act caused Americans … [Read more...]

  So, on this night, on our 245th year as a nation, I have come to report on the state of the nation — the state of the union. And my report is this: the state of the union is strong because you, the American people, are strong. We are stronger today than we were a year ago. And we’ll be stronger a year from now than we are today. This is our moment to meet and overcome the challenges of our time. And we will, as one people. One America. The United States of America. God bless you all, … [Read more...]

      The mental health of Americans has deteriorated considerably during what has been labeled this “perpetual COVID-19 pandemic”. We examined the dimensions of and some of the reasons for that decline in our blog preceding this one citing “identity, individuality, and isolation” as mental health variants, which, in the long term, could have greater negative consequences for our country than the Delta and Omicron variants. We concluded that piece by … [Read more...]

    Mens sana in corpora sano. This well-known Latin phrase translates as “a sound mind in a sound body.” In 2022, neither America’s mind nor body is all that sound. David Brooks wrote some insightful columns in the last half of 2021 that relate to the current mental state of our nation and its citizens. In one posted on January 13, titled “America is Falling Apart at the Seams”, Brooks cites the dramatic increases in traffic deaths; teachers confronting “disruptive … [Read more...]

        As 2021 drew to a close, Harry Reid and John Madden died on December 28, and Betty White died on New Year’s Eve. All three were American originals. Reid and Madden were bookends with completely different personalities. White was one-of-a-kind. Their stories are uniquely American and help tell the evolving and multifaceted narrative of our American experiment. We need to hear and remember them in order to continue this experiment on its upward trajectory. We … [Read more...]

      The opposite of left is right, the opposite of right is wrong/ So anyone who’s left is wrong, right? Those are lyrics from a song that the brilliant Stephen Sondheim wrote for his 1964 musical Anyone Can Whistle. In 2022, because of the polarization in this extremely divided country, the lyrics for a current song titled Whistlin’ Into the Wind might go something like this: If there is only the right and only the left, there is no … [Read more...]