Nuts to First Class

Nuts to First Class

I recently had the occasion to fly first class. As a poet and director of a small non-profit organization, this was a rare treat indeed. So why couldn’t I enjoy myself? It started with the warm nuts. I’d settled in with my free cocktail, having mastered the...
White Supremacy Is Alive and All Too Well

White Supremacy Is Alive and All Too Well

A New York Times obituary for Julian Bond, the civil rights icon who passed away this August, described the late leader as a “persistent opponent of the stubborn remnants of white supremacy.” Remnants? Hardly. Notwithstanding the hard-won gains of the 1960s, race...
Pensions Powered by Climate Change

Pensions Powered by Climate Change

If I had $17 million in savings, I’d take advantage of that financial security and retire early. That’s the average total retirement assets of chief executives at the top 30 U.S. oil, natural gas, and coal companies, according to a recent report by the Institute for...
Byline Inequality Matters

Byline Inequality Matters

Anna Quindlen relayed an eye-opening and hair-raising experience to her readers in 1990. “A newspaper editor said to me not long ago, with no hint of self-consciousness, ‘I’d love to run your column, but we already run Ellen Goodman,’” the New York Times...
Do the Rich Rule America?

Do the Rich Rule America?

Is America’s political system controlled by a small financial elite? One former president thinks so. Almost 40 years after he was elected, former President Jimmy Carter commented recently that our political system is now “an oligarchy with unlimited political...