Letters: ‘Sustainable economy’ worth exploring; The power of aspiration

‘Sustainable economy’ worth exploring

For 9 minutes traffic paused at College Avenue on Saturday, Nov. 26 for an act of civil disobedience to stop climate change.

This action constitutes a slight inconvenience when compared with the current and projected disrupted lives due to the impacts of our human-made changing climate. It offers time to reflect on horrific flooding that prompted one survivor to state, “I cannot say that I am glad to be alive.” Or children starving to the point that some parents sell a kidney for money for food, and worse, some sell their children all in hopes that their children will survive. Extreme weather leads to extreme suffering.

There is a better way. In 15 minutes, economist Kate Raworth shares the idea of a sustainable economy called Doughnut Economics through her TED Talk titled “A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow.” It offers a model that describes how we can do better for humanity and life on Earth. Isn’t that a gift worth giving?

The power of aspiration

Recently we sent the Artemis Rocket from these grounds up to the moon.

Now, science will explain this in terms of engine and fuel. But I say we see the way we reach the moon in President Trump’s announcing his candidacy for president.

We reach the moon by aspiration, the rocket and fuel are incidental.

For going deeper we see this aspiration in the deliberate heartbeat of every man that ever lived.

To be sure this is an age of engineering, of going precisely from here to there.

But conceiving the “there” in the first place requires looking up in wonder and aspiration, and this is the beginning of the mind.

Dangerous amendments thwarted

Democrats won control of the Pennsylvania House in the November midterms, putting the brakes on Republican plans to put five constitutional amendments on the May ballot.

Republicans had been scheming to change the state’s constitution in an effort to get their wacky amendments past the Governor’s veto. Knowing that voter turnout it is historically low in off-season elections, especially among Democrats, Republicans were counting on their rabid base to turn out in force to support their dangerous amendments.

One particularly shameful amendment would increase the voting age to 21, despite the fact that the federal voting age is 18 and the state cannot supersede federal law.

So, Pennsylvania’s Republican legislators think 18-year-olds can put their lives on the line in our armed forces, but should not be allowed to vote until they’re 21? They think it’s OK for young people to marry at 18, hold full-time jobs, raise a family and contribute to the economy, but not old enough to vote until they’re 21?

The Republican Party learned from this last election that young voters are rejecting a party increasingly run by extremists — a party that’s on the wrong side of such issues as climate change, gun violence and reproductive rights.

Some candidates, such as Doug Mastriano and Dr. Oz, were so extreme that even many Republicans couldn’t support them.

If Republicans ever regain control of the House, make no mistake — they’ll be doing everything they can to make voting harder, especially for young people and people of color.

‘The Wizard of Id’

From behind a tattered orange curtain

He re-emerges

Without grace or class

Offering only more infantile, pathetic obstinance

Insufficient to save him, from himself

From the retribution of justice forthcoming

And from his own, incontrovertible loss

Of a country

Finding its way back

To truth

To its heart

And to its soul.