An Economist's Travelogue
Last December, I wrote an essay about my alma mater, Saint Vincent College, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. In it, I describe some troubling events. Ever since the ascendancy of the current archabbot, Douglas Nowicki, in 1991,…
When we are on the road, Karen usually drives. I plot out the directions before we leave and write them down on the notepad most motels provide next to the telephone. Even though the…
We were in Torrey, Utah hiking in Capitol Reef National Park. We got a room for a week at the Affordable Inn for a reasonable rate, which surprised us, since it was near the beginning…
The impact of the U.S. economic crisis has been geographically uneven (see map). You can’t miss it in Las Vegas, where there are half-constructed homes, ubiquitous "For Sale" signs, abandoned shopping plazas, and homeless and half-crazed…
We were six months on the road, from February to August, traveling in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Oregon. We have been to towns large and small: Santa…
[This first appeared in counterpunch on August 17, 2010. This version includes hyperlinks.]. Sometimes events conspire to make you think that things are worse than you imagined. On August 3, Marilyn Buck died. Marilyn was…
We hiked in the Paradise and Sunrise sections of Mt. Rainier. The former is where the historic lodge is located, one often featured on the Travel Channel. Karen noted a long line waiting for the…
We’re in our sixth month on the road. After a stay back in Boulder, Colorado to take care of personal matters, we traveled through Wyoming, Montana, and Washington, on our way to Portland, Oregon, where…
VII. By the time Clyde got the letter telling him the date of the arbitration hearing, he was nearly out of money. He’d made house payments, but the rest of the bills were overdue and…
V. A factory is a battle zone. Nothing better illustrates the slogan that “time is money” than the daily struggle between workers and bosses to squeeze a little more free time or a little more…