These are the times that try men’s souls. Thomas Paine The skies remain dark this Thanksgiving. The greatest economic recession since the great depression is entering its fourth year. Sixteen percent of workers are either unemployed or Read more »
Constitution Day, 2011
I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore! Howard Beale Network The options considered by the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention were broad. What kind of government were we to have? Read more »
Thanksgiving, 2010
These are the times that try men’s souls. Thomas Paine The skies are dark this Thanksgiving. Winter has come to much of America. Two-plus years into the deepest economic recession since the Great Depression, we, the people Read more »
Constitution Day, 2010
How are we, a free people, to govern ourselves? This was the question Washington, Madison, Franklin and their colleagues asked themselves that miraculous summer 223 years ago. Eleven years after bringing forth a new nation, conceived in Read more »
Independence Day, 2010
“We are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world.” John Adams July, 1776 The Fourth of July parade. Oil City, Pennsylvania. A lot of Read more »
Memorial Day, 2010
… that these dead shall not have died in vain Four score and seven years before Abraham Lincoln spoke these words at Gettysburg, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and Read more »
Martin Luther King Day, 2010
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. Martin Luther King, Jr. I remember when I discovered my own racism. It was in a small town in northeastern Ohio, six Read more »
Thanksgiving, 2009
It has been eight years since we observed Thanksgiving in the dark shadow of 9/11, eight years since I wrote the first of these Freedom Essays expressing my deepest gratitude to those who bequeathed to us the Read more »
Constitution Day, 2009
You lie. Joe Wilson Congressman, South Carolina The debate over health-care reform in America is being dominated by two extreme political factions. Ideologues on the far left threaten to torpedo any bill that fails to have a Read more »
Independence Day, 2009
Great oaks from tiny acorns grow. In most of the world the sun rose on the morning of July 4, 1776 much as it had risen the day before and much as it would rise the day Read more »