An Economist's Travelogue
The orchards in Capitol Reef National Park in south central Utah are located in what used to be the tiny village of Fruita. The setting is extraordinary. High rock cliffs, formed when the earth erupted…
Last May I reported on the plight of people in the western Pennsylvania town of Apollo. As a result of gross corporate negligence, many residents have suffered serious illnesses from the uranium fuel plants located…
[Note: This story is from my book, In and Out of the Working Class. Counterpunch was kind enough to post it recently.] With a slight shrug of his shoulders, he began to move toward the…
[Note: This was first published in Monthly Review in January 2000. It was based upon a talk I gave to teachers at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York. Noted scholar of education, Henry Giroux,…
Five weeks after my mother died, we had an auction to sell her worldly goods. I wanted to give everything away, but my attorney said that, as executor, I had a legal obligation to my…
We spent part of Labor Day watching the mucking and drilling competition in Park City, Utah. Park City is famous for its skiing, but the slopes sit atop the silver mines that were the foundations…
I walked out onto a rocky pier and sat watching the surfers. They reminded me of seals, bobbing up and down, carried by the relentless rush of the ocean. Then the right wave came in,…
I first corresponded with Alex Cockburn in 1986. An article of mine titled, "South Africa, Anti-communism, and Value-Free Science" had appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education and created a stir. One of the irate…
The title of this post refers to the Huddie Leadbetter song, made famous by Pete Seeger and the Weavers. My mother never liked it, but only because she got teased, since Irene is her name.…
The recent defeat of the Scott Walker recall in Wisconsin, an election in which Walker soundly defeated the same Democratic challenger who ran against him when he became governor in 2010, has generated much discussion.…