You can’t change what people say, but you can change how you hear it — Were you ever a toddler? If you’re a parent or have other reason to be around one, they are surprisingly undeterred little things. Fear is not a big factor in their world. Distaste sometimes, but rarely fear. They pop nearly anything in their mouth. They advance to the edge of…

Let’s stop using dollars to measure people’s money A recent Forbes report illuminated yet more confirmation of the wealth gap. Not that there is a gap — that came about when the first person decided their seashell equated to wealth, committing their peers to instant poverty — but the acceleration…

I took a POV here to get people to stop looking at everything like a commodity. It's very US capitalist that if you can buy it in a catalog and have Amazon Prime deliver it, what's the problem? Seriously - you could offer whale meat sushi served with rainforest hardwood chopsticks on an ivory plate sent via diesel refrigeration truck to your house and people would still buy it. Humans are awful. However, value of human life? In a way far more interesting/sad. In short order you pretty much covered it. Slaves were valued at billions of dollars, enough that America was willing to pay the cost of 700,000 men's lives to argue about it, even as what we're discussing is chattel slavery, which values only the output of a person as their maltreatment shows the slave is not valued for being human.

This was a beautifully-written piece, Robert. I like to remember that much of New England was mapped out and built by people on horseback for three centuries prior to those on Caterpillars. Resultingly, there is timeless sense of immersion when one traverses it on wheels yet still sitting on a saddle.

We can but won't because it's right there in your question. It empowers. Who of the weak-minded will voluntarily abstain? Conflation is one of the most effective debate strategies known. Great article. This topic is a tough sell in a world where everything is black and white. "Your words hurt…