A life in words
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Depolarization as a spiritual path
I have studied and decried political polarization in the United States for many years. Congress, which should be the key site for synthesizing disparate viewpoints from across the country, is instead largely following trends established by rival media echo-chambers. The polarization is materially impairing our ability to govern ourselves effectively. These competing media worlds have…
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Separation of race and state: a response to Coleman Hughes and Jamelle Bouie
The most delicious thing in the world is a good discussion of a critical issue. That’s what we got in Open to Debate’s conversation between Coleman Hughes and Jamelle Bouie on the topic of color-blindness with regard to race. It was a great debate. I think Jamelle was most effective in pointing out that civil…
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Conversation with a pacifist
The city I was born in (Richland, Washington) was created by the federal government as part of the effort to synthesize the plutonium used in the Fat Man bomb that destroyed Nagasaki. As such I feel not responsible for, but somehow tangled up in, the legacy of that development, especially since reading Black Rain by…