Conducive Chronicle

“I want to say one word to you,” Mr. McGuire says to Ben in The Graduate. “Just one word. Plastics.” It was the line that defined a generation, or the promise of it. Nearly forty-five years later, that famous clip is included in another film depicting the high cost of fulfilling that promise. On March [...]

The world had been rocked over the past few months by the cataclysmic changes brought about by the Jasmine Revolution. Across the Middle East, seething, roiling masses of humanity are realizing their collective power, and as they spread their wings and test their strength, the earth trembles. Looking around and seeing corruption, oppression, and inequality, [...]

I had been working on a piece about Tunisia, Egypt, and the domino effect of people inspired to take action against dictators and despots throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East, but now it seems we have taken that push for real democracy to heart here in the United States. When decades-old regimes were pushed [...]

Today is the big V Day. Maybe you’re selecting flowers that benefit a charity. Maybe you’re still researching fair trade chocolates for cacao content and worker conditions. Maybe you’ve torn up the sixteenth draft of the sonnet you’ve written your sweetie. If you’re still stumped (or even if you’re all set), there’s one thing you can [...]

This is the fourth installment of a critical history of the Democratic Party and its role in American politics.  Part I looked at the alleged Jeffersonian roots of the party; Part II looked at its rise in the pre-Civil War era; Part III its role in the events leading to the Civil War. Now Part [...]

To remain competitive in the emerging market of clean energy technologies, Senator Bingaman (D-N.M.) called Monday for the 112th Congress to put renewed focus on policy. “Companies will not establish manufacturing bases where they don’t see a real market,” Bingaman said in a speech addressing the NDN at the National Press Club. “Factories are located close [...]

October was National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and since that time, I’ve been thinking a lot about this widespread problem in our society. I noticed, as you likely did, that numerous methods for supporting patients and further research were promoted during the month. October saw a barrage of advertisements and events, both material and virtual, [...]

The mission is to keep usable material from the waste stream and to create affordable art from it.

For good and bad, the family with which we must now identify is the global one. Few communities operate in isolation in a world interlinked by technology, trade, and politics. Some would argue that globalization, as was chronicled in Part I of this series, has so far primarily served just the powerful multinational corporations.  As national economies increasingly intertwine, we may legitimately [...]

Why, in the midst of a huge recession, were any Americans in support of continuing tax cuts for those making $250,000 or more a year? Despite high unemployment and a significant decrease in wages–Americans still, somewhere deep inside, believe that one day they too will be wealthy, which is why most had already stopped listening [...]

It was through a series of important maneuvers, all connected with the American political process, which gave rise to over-sized private organizations whose reach would ultimately circle the globe. The costs have been numerous, including a stripping away of our citizen-based democracy and a species threatening ecological crisis. The result appears to be an international corporatocracy existing without an equally powerful political body to properly supervise its agendas.

Close to 500,000 classified U.S. military reports have been released on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The CIA is on a public campaign to expand the drone war in Pakistan and get clearance to assassinate U.S. citizens in countries we have not declared war with (any other assassinations don’t warrant an ethical dilemma). All [...]