In last year’s column, I wrote about three childhood moments that created me as a person – or informed me that I had changed, moved forward in the process of becoming. These were moments of self-awareness. Gosh! I had no idea such a thing existed, but there I was at age six, playing “Red Rover” on my elementary-school playground with a bunch of other kids and I realized: I was part of something bigger than myself; I wasn’t alone. Run and play, laugh and love! It’s called “community” (I later learned).
Browsing: Opinions
2025: Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst
Happy Holidays to all who have enjoyed The Gantt Report in 2024. I truly appreciate your support in the current year and your longtime support that has taken place for many decades.
America’s survival as a republic hinges on the fundamental rights of voters to participate in free public elections. These rights are the cornerstone of our democracy, empowering officials of either political party to govern the country. The ability to identify and prioritize voters’ needs according to their priorities is crucial for any party to win elections. This underscores the importance of voters’ connectivity, whereby the medium becomes the message (VC+M)
The Duffocation is about to hit the Oscillator !
As COVID-19 swept across the country, we sprang into action through combined efforts from our affiliate movement and public/private partnerships to save lives across the country. In 2021, we launched All In, a joint effort with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to close the vaccination gap in communities of color and underserved neighborhoods with the help of our affiliates.
These people can be divided into three groups: super-rich donors to Trump’s campaign who have bought their way into an official position; supreme loyalists whose chief qualification is subservience to Trump; and members of Trump’s extended family. So far as I can tell, none of these people puts devotion to the rule of law, the Constitution, and the public interest above personal gain and support of strongman rule.
We were in one of those finish-everything-before-the-holidays meetings, pussyfooting about an accusation someone had made. Suddenly a colleague confessed, “My hands are clenched. My shoulders are tense.” He paused. “If I listen to my body, clearly I feel like I’m being attacked.” As he described his feelings, I recognized them in myself. Judging by their faces, so did the others.
This is thanks to Joe Biden’s decision to grant clemency to Michel Conahan, one of two juvenile-court judges in Luzerne County. Pennsylvania, convicted of accepting cash from private detention centers – as much as $2.8 million over a period of about six years – in exchange for sending them children (my God, as young as 8-years-old) convicted of petty offenses, such as fighting, shoplifting, underage drinking, to serve prolonged sentences in prison.
Dictionaries have selected enshittification, brain-rot and polarization as their 2024 Words of the Year. Each are depressingly apt reflections of the past 12 months. Roméo Dallaire’s latest book The Peace includes the words Ubumwe (Kinyarwanda), Ubuntu (Zulu) and Niw_hk_m_kanak (Cree) – which all convey more uplifting ways of being that were much needed in 2024.