Chicago My mother always insisted after every birthday and Christmas, and it seemed like a host of other occasions, that my brother and I write “thank you” notes. That lesson set hard on my brother, and he embraced it as a good thing. I didn’t disagree with the practice, but often it was bottom-of-the-list-business …
Category: Elections
Trusting the Voters Turns Out Not Bad
Brussels In the United States, real populists, meaning candidates who really believe in the people, rather than being demagogues and wannabe-autocrats, believed in the initiative and recall process, solidified in a number of states in the Progressive Era, more than one-hundred years ago. Certainly, not all states have them. They were in fact more …
The People Speak – In Tongues
Rotterdam Rotterdam is an interesting and attractive city. Meeting with an old colleague and having dinner with her family, I walked several kilometers under a huge moon from the western district back towards the city centre and the harbor area, where we were staying at an inexpensive business hotel. There were long stretches of …

