Category: Uncategorized

If you have $50, you can build a new Norristown.  All of the elements for a dramatic renaissance are in place.  Without political connections, without appeals to angel investors, Norristown (and thousands of other small towns across the United States) is on the cusp of an economic breakthrough that can change the entire world economy.…

E pluribus Unum has defined the United States from its earliest days.  “From Many, One” indicated a unity of values rising from a diversity of origins.  The initial idea focused on the prevalence of colonial or state identities that had to merge into Benjamin Franklin’s concept of ‘the American’ as distinct from a ‘British subject.’ …

There are powerful people in the United States who advance the argument that women have no guaranteed civil rights under the Constitution.  They point to the word “male” in the Fifteenth Amendment and the need for the explicit extension of women’s suffrage under the Nineteenth Amendment to justify their perspectives.  While fewer people challenge the…

Beyonce thought she broke new ground with “Drunk in Love.”  The brand of marketing involved with the evolution of Rihanna, Kanye, Kim Kardashian, and Jay Z is little more than the mild pornography peddled by Comcast on its late-night cable channels.  Popular entertainment had some sense of dignity when Elvis, Grace Kelly, James Brown, the…

Do you remember the joy of receiving a letter in the mail?  Students today have so much access to each other and the world through social media, emails, and texts that the pleasure of receiving a personal note has almost been forgotten.  Before electronic communication emerged, phone calls and greeting cards were a great source…

The Seattle Seahawks defense demonstrated that the most sophisticated offensive minds cannot outperform dedicated, intelligent defense at the highest levels of competition.  The Republican Party faces the same challenge that overwhelmed Peyton Manning this past Sunday.  The 2014 election season features a confident, assured Barack Obama who gained the most substantial political achievements in two generations during…

Benjamin Franklin once noted that New Jersey was a keg tapped at both ends.  He expressed the common wisdom that the state would always be an extension of the two major cities that bordered it – Philadelphia and New York.  Despite his genius in reframing the local and regional identities of the states into a national idea…

“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”  Frederick Douglass posed this question in 1852 to an assembly of abolitionists gathered to celebrate American independence.  His response was that it was a day that revealed the injustice, cruelty, and hypocrisy of the American promise more than any other.  He said, “To him, your celebration is…

Many people don’t know that January is a key production month for academics and intellectuals around the world.  Thousands of the best and brightest scholars in the humanities and social sciences travel to major international conferences at the start of every calendar year.  The winter break at most universities looks enviable to most observers because it offers…

The fire this past weekend is part of a horrid pattern in metropolitan Philadelphia.  Too many old buildings fall victim to insufficient maintenance, and hundreds of families suffer for this neglect every year.  From Camden to Chester, Coatesville to Cheltenham, fires destroy homes and lives like a pestilence on the region’s neighborhoods. Sudden, catastrophic occurrences like Superstorm…