After the Nov. 5, 2024 vote, we must learn to rebuild our “civic muscles” – reading and discussing local news, learning the issues at stake, getting engaged in decisions. Read More
Thomas Paine Redux
The Cost of Corruption
There is growing evidence of corruption in our governance structures. And it is time for citizens to demand transparency and investigate. Life is complicated. Managing kids, partner. Getting food onto the table. Keeping appointments. Staying on top of the email inbox. So paying attention to those people who oversee the purity of our drinking water,… Read More
An 1863 Message From Gettysburg PA Defines Us
19 November 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA But Lincoln had no such confidence. By his time, the idea that all men were created equal was a “proposition,†and Americans of his day were “engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.†Standing near… Read More
Pakistan Takes Brunt of World Climate Change
While contributing only about one half of 1% (0.05%) of the world’s carbon emissions, this country of about 178 million people is slammed with the monsoons, melting glaciers, massive floods of what has been “theory” about what climate change can do. A third of the country is under water. 1300 people have been killed. That’s… Read More
Is Governance the Issue? Do We Care?
Our nation, according to media reports, is as divided as it has been since the Civil War. But it is hard to know what divides us. Are our agencies of government causing the problem? Or do we have conflicting understandings of what governance, the process of implementing our laws and policies, is? Do our country’s… Read More
Our Common Purpose: Dramatically Expand Civic Infrastructure Capacity
This article is based on a report, OUR COMMON PURPOSE, produced in June, 2020, by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In his New Yorker article of 11/16/20, Evan Osnos likened the report to the civic equivalent of the 9/11 Commission Report. It offers bipartisan recommendations in the form of six Strategies, with between two and eight… Read More
Sachs Defines Essential Infrastructure “Long Game”
Jeffrey Sachs recommends:  Rather than trying to deploy construction workers within the next 60 days, I propose that we envision the kind of built environment we want for the next 60 years. With a shared vision of America’s infrastructure goals, actually designing and building the new transport, energy, communications, and water systems will surely require… Read More
Infrastructure: John Oliver Explains it All (HBO)
So you don’t think infrastructure can be fun? Watch comedian John Oliver explain its intricate, critically important, hilarious fascinations in this video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8 Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Infrastructure (HBO) Infrastructure investment will save lives. Also, from: Â CEO FORUM GROUP: “Infrastructure refers to the large-scale public systems, services, and facilities of a country… Read More
Boston Trains Face Infrastructure Finance Challenge
John D. Macomber, Harvard Business School lecturer and construction finance expert addresses the long term challenge of infrastructure finance in the context of the short term public transit crisis facing the city of Boston  and the MBTA in the city’s snowiest Boston winter on record… so far. The MBTA faces the same problems that confront every… Read More