The Healthcare Questions We're NOT Asking

From the White House to the Wall Street Journal to the table next to you at Starbuck's, everyone seems to be talking about healthcare. Except that they're not. What people are debating right now is how to pay for healthcare. That's a tough enough question, but society might be better served by asking some tougher questions first.

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Categories: Education | Nutrition | Finance | Leadership | Economics | Ethics | Environment

7 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 9:44 PM

What if Rampant Consumerism Isn't the Answer?

by Dean Zatkowsky

I happened to be visiting Yellowstone National Park on my 51^st birthday, and noticed that I was wearing the same black sweater I wore in Yosemite on my 18^th birthday.  Before the sweater was mine, it had been my brother-in-law's letterman sweater in the late 1960s.

When I reminded my sister that my favorite sweater for thirty-three years had been her husband's for who knows how long before I got it, she said, "They don't make sweaters like they used to."

Her son corrected her: "No, they don't make consumers like they used to."

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Categories: Economics | Ethics | Environment

2 comments - Posted by Dean Zatkowsky at 11:52 AM

How to Almost Enjoy Tax Day

Author and traveling storyteller Donald Davis recalls the shock of receiving his first paycheck at his first job and finding the amount considerably smaller than he expected. He was furious, and told his father - a banker -how badly the government was treating him. His father took the teenager over to the local library reference section and pulled down a copy of the most recent federal budget. 

"Spend a little time going through this," advised his father, "and find something that you like. Then, pretend that's what YOUR tax dollars pay for."  Donald read through the massive document grudgingly, until he came to the allocation for national parks. For many decades since, Donald Davis has taken some solace on April 15 by reflecting on the real estate he owns all over the continent!

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Categories: Philanthropy | Economics | Environment | Optimism

9 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 6:25 AM

Where Shall Our Children Live?

In my January 15th blog entry, I mentioned Johann Hari's Slate.com review of American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau. I have not yet read the book, but Hari's reference to sociologist Jane Jacobs' contribution caught my eye:

Human beings are part of nature, not some alien species-so "the cities of human beings are as natural ... as are the colonies of prairie dogs or the beds of oysters." Far from being free and somehow mystically complete, "in real life, peasants are the least free of men-bound by tradition, ridden by caste, fettered by superstitions, riddled by suspicion and foreboding of whatever is strange."

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Categories: Leadership | Environment | Optimism

1 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 11:15 AM

A Businesslike Approach to Environmentalism

Presuming he does not become too distracted bailing out incompetent companies, our new president seems poised to engage the nation in work we should have undertaken long ago: responsible stewardship of our environment.

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Categories: Leadership | Economics | Environment | Optimism

0 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 9:45 AM