18 years of the Hackenblog. Yes, even to me it seems incredible that this blog I started to publicize Dr. Hackenbush and her Orchestra books is still chuggin’ along. Oh well.

“The major stressors of the twenty-first century—a fragmented media environment, profound demographic shifts, artificial intelligence and other technological advances, economic inequality, centralized power, and climate change—require a fundamental reassessment of U.S. political institutions, civil society ecosystems, and civic norms. If this was not already clear before COVID-19 revealed the strains on the body politic, it is painfully evident now.”
The Challenges, by Our Common Purpose, American Academy, 2020
Continue reading The U.S. Congress is my hero (for the moment) →

“Instead, the president’s worst impulses were neutralized by three pillars of the unwritten constitution. The first is the customary separation between the president and federal criminal prosecution (even though the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch). The second is the traditional political neutrality of the military (even though the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces). The third is the personal integrity of state elections officials. If any of these informal ‘firewalls’ had failed, President Trump might be on his way to a second and more autocratic term. But they held firm, for which the Republic should be grateful.”
What Really Saved the Republic From Trump?, by Tim Wu, NYT, 10 December 2020
Continue reading Blogging cannot exist without the feeling that somewhere, in some way, you are justified →

“Founded nearly 250 years ago, the United States of America is the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. Its infancy, under the Articles of Confederation, was turbulent. Its early prospects, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, were very much uncertain. At the Convention, Benjamin Franklin—catalyst of the Revolution, leading citizen of the republic, enslaver turned abolitionist—wondered as he observed the conflicts, compromises, and contradictions of the process: was the young nation’s sun rising or setting? With the signing of the Constitution, he concluded, the sun was rising.”
Introduction: Our Common Purpose, by American Academy 2020
Continue reading I like two types of blogging – domestic and foreign →

“The Commission spent two years engaging with communities all over the U.S. to explore how best to respond to the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in our political and civic life. Its final and bipartisan report, Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century, was released in June 2020 and includes six strategies and 31 ambitious recommendations to help the nation emerge as a more resilient democracy by 2026, the nation’s 250th anniversary.”
Our Common Purpose, by the American Academy (yes, we have one), 2020
Continue reading People only blog what they are prepared to blog →

Mary Wollstonecraft finally honoured with statue after 200 years, by Mark Brown, Guardian, 09 November 2020

‘Insulting to her’: Mary Wollstonecraft sculpture sparks backlash, by Alexandrea Topping, Guardian, 10 Novemeber 2020

Huh. I thought I didn’t like it due to a personal failing.

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Virginia Woolf statue fundraiser flooded with donations after Wollstonecraft controversy, by Alison Flood, Guardian, 13 November 2020
Continue reading Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. →