The systemic drive of capitalism produces cheapening labor (reduce input costs) expanding markets (new venues for profit) economic growth constant innovation in production ushering in a new order of economic reason, of governing rationality. Thus capital itself, gives shape to human worlds, the power of world making. Capital dominates the human beings, and human…
Shortly we will depart Galena. A few hours of driving and we will be home again in Batavia. We take leave of Galena but our few days here have given us memories enough for many days and hours of satisfied reflection upon the people that we met, and all that we learned. The last…
Today is our last day in Galena. Our accommodations are about a quarter mile from the home where U.S. Grant and his family lived. We could walk to the Grant place. It is on a bluff. The elevation affords a grand view of Galena. I consider that the high elevations around the town are…
It has been a while since visiting the Mississippi river town. It is close enough for a short road trip, a get-away from the day to day routine of home base. Everyone benefits from adventure. Travel brings different scenery, others whose way of life differs from our own. Who doesn’t desire to tell their…
DREAMING A WALL by Richard Blanco He hates his neighbors’ flowers, claims hisare redder, bluer, whiter than theirs, believeshis bees work harder, his soil richer, blacker.He hears birds sing sweeter in his trees, tallerand fuller, too, but not enough to screen outthe nameless faces next door that he callsliars, thieves who’d steal his juicier…
The Beginning 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was…. There is always a beginning, at…
I grew up in the South. I am a drag racing fan, and in general, I get the appeal of motor sports, any motorsport. NASCAR has evolved into something, that in principle, has troubled me for a few years now. Over the years racing American manufactured cars, has evolved from a regional motor sport…
If I had to provide a definition, I would say that politics has to do with the relationship between a collectivity and the available and necessary resources, with the aim of employing such resources to increase the happiness of the collectivity -if we understand collectivity as the sum of its individual members, and happiness…
Millions of Americans are wrestling with the impossibility of a traditional middle-class existence. In homes across the country, kitchen tables are strewn with unpaid bills. Lights burn late into the night. The same calculations get performed again and again, over and over, through exhaustion and sometimes tears. Wages minus grocery receipts. Minus medical bills….
Yesterday was a mild, “feels like spring” day. Enjoying the sunlight, we took the Batavia River Walk for a stroll southward towards the dam by the old Challenge windmill factory. A visit to the dam is a reminder of the immense power of flowing water, moved by gravitational pull toward the Mississippi River ultimately…
