When does morality make a difference? This question came to mind as I listened to a Freakonomics podcast on possibly viable meat alternatives and the environmental damage done by meat production. One of the podcast’s interviewees, Mike Selden,
Morality and justice
The Cougar Within Us
A beloved uncle and aunt, husband-and-wife farmers, named their first cow Rebecca, a lovely, sweet-tempered red and white Ayrshire, and we all fell for her. My uncle and aunt couldn’t bring themselves to have her killed, and so she died of old age.
Must Politics Dictate Art?
I’ve just finished reading the 2018 edition of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s venerable Best American Short Stories (BASS), and I feel I’ve been brought up to date with my politics, above all, the political grievances I ought to feel. But should
Who Said That?
Did Mark Twain say, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why”? The quotation was included one morning in a post to a list for writers that I belong to. A man I’ll call Pangloss, after the
Do Worry, Be Happier
Stephen Colbert looks at a black man and declares, “I don’t see race.” Don Quixote catches sight of windmills and sees giants, along with the opportunity for a glorious knight’s errand. The idealism in both instances is both laughable and laudable.
Detained at the Southern Border
In 1974, I took a bus to Montreal from a distant part of New England. At the time, I was a British citizen with alien status in the United States. Recent events at the United States’ southern border, though far more serious than mine at Canada’s,