Tag: compassion

Predatory Authority and the American Culture of Violence

January 31, 2023

The trajectory of police violence against mostly young Black and Brown men has taken many turns. It finds expression in diverse situations. However, we cannot fully understand it without looking beyond the immediate murderous actions of particular officers in the heat of the moment. The violence of authority runs much deeper than that. Predatory Authority … More Predatory Authority and the American Culture of Violence

Culture Decay and the Autocratic Attempt

July 18, 2022

The verified allegations of the Fake President’s autocratic attempt to throw off the bounds of democratic process to affirm the object of his self-doubt—supremacy to everyone and everything in the world—keep piling up. Yet, the present political predicament of the United States of America is quite a bit more complicated than that. Without the decay … More Culture Decay and the Autocratic Attempt

Taser, Gun, and Character: What You Cannot Train

April 21, 2021

I am tired of all the convenient talk of “more training” and other improvements in the formal management of police practices, as if they were a mere problem of technical engineering. They are not. The most important quality of police officers is not the skills they take from the academy to the precinct. It is … More Taser, Gun, and Character: What You Cannot Train

It’s a wonderful life, but not for Ebenezer Scrooge

December 30, 2020

With all the crises and stress in our family and in the world, we decided to spend a good part of Christmas day watching old Christmas movies. First, we watched the 1946 classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” starring James Stewart, which I had not seen in decades. Then we watched the 1984 version of “A … More It’s a wonderful life, but not for Ebenezer Scrooge

Public Health, Personal Liberty. and the Scourge of Interdependence

May 18, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced to the surface some very peculiar ideas about American values. Those values have changed significantly since the explosive century of industrial consumerism. As industrial extraction, production, and consumption expanded through the twentieth century, right up until the pandemic, economic change has transformed the character of the old “rugged individualism” as … More Public Health, Personal Liberty. and the Scourge of Interdependence