Corporations are [not] people

I’ve been trying for months to write about why corporations are not people. The reason this is such a struggle, I fear, is because corporations actually are people. They are treated like people by other people; what more is there to know? When the Citizens United case was decided, it resulted in an outcry of,

Real money magic: respect

Respect is one of those values which often feels lacking in our society. There is too little respect for human life, and there’s also not enough for the non-human lives lost due to human needs. Respect for the environment — whether untouched wilderness, urban streetscape, or anything in between — also frequently falls short of

About Greece

Dear Poseidon, I’ve been thinking about Greece. It’s in the news a lot now, as it goes through the most recent — and apparently most dire — throes of the debt problems that have plagued it since that country joined the Eurozone. I don’t know how many of my ancestors made offerings to you, Poseidon,

The invisible spirits of privilege

I’ve seen some nasty arguments erupt — or get seriously intensified by — those three little words, “Check your privilege.”  Yes, I’ve been part of some of those fights.  There is something visceral that happens when one’s privilege is hauled out for inspection, something that shuts down any real communication about substantive issues for many

The tenacious spirit of depression

I think it’s a poverty of the English language that we use the same word to describe how a 5-year-old feels when his baseball game gets canceled because it’s raining and the way someone feels who’s about to jump off a bridge because life has become unlivable and untenable. – Andrew Solomon I never heard