Only Give Trump So Much Attention

April 27, 2017

Only Give Trump So Much Attention

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” — Atticus Finch, from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

President Barack Obama shared “fellow American” Atticus Finch’s words in his farewell address on January 10. He used them to tell us our hearts must change. “For blacks and other minority groups,” he said, “it means tying our own very real struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face—not only the refugee, or the immigrant, or the rural poor, or the transgender American, but also the middle-aged white

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Whither Empathy?

September 27, 2015

Whither empathy? Empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of others.” I think about empathy often, in part because a friend offered up a lack of empathy as an explanation for all of our many ills.  I’m not sure he’s right, but I don’t want to say he’s wrong, either.

The immediate trigger for this piece—as in, what did I read today?—comes from a Facebook comment to Walmart could pay workers $14.89 an hour without raising prices at Daily Kos. I can’t find the comment but a pretty close approximation is

I could support a wage increase for Walmart workers, but not until the shelves are stocked better. Every time I go to buy something they’re

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