Where, Exactly, Are the Republicans Headed?

So now the Republicans seem doomed to act like some strange variety of lemmings, unable to turn back from the cliff after their leader has jumped, but unable to turn away. And so they spend every day of their lives dancing along the edge, trying to convince the rest of us how good life will be at the bottom.

Welcome!

I write as The Practical Utopian because my twin desires are to be:
• Down-to-earth — I try to write short pieces explaining big ideas that will be broadly useful;
• Idealistic — I write with the goal of helping all of us achieve better outcomes, both for ourselves and for those around us.

Economics is essentially a question of design

Economics, it turns out, is not a matter of discovering laws: it is essentially a question of design.

— Kate Raworth

Small and Obscure Deeds

Of all the will toward the ideal in mankind only a small part can manifest itself in public action. All the rest of this force must be content with small and obscure deeds. The sum of these, however, is a thousand times stronger than the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. The latter, compared to the former, are like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean.

— Albert Schweitzer, 2002

Hallelujah

The history of Leonard Cohen's song “Hallelujah” is a fascinating one. Cohen's songs had never really been embraced by the masses, and his first recording of “Hallelujah” in the early eighties was part of an album so lacking in obvious commercial appeal that the president of CBS Records responded to it by saying: “What is this? This isn't pop music. We're not releasing it. This is a disaster.”

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