Workers installing the spire on the new skyscraper:
America
America, Federal Government, History, Holiday, Law, Liberty, Politics
Happy Constitution Day
by JOHN ADAMS •
America, Liberty, Local Government
The Municipal War Against…Vegetable Gardens
by JOHN ADAMS •
In America, and places beyond, homeowners’ vegetable gardens have become a target of municipal officials. They’re beautiful, offer fresh food, conserve water, and are peaceful uses of homeowners’ private property: yet for it all, vegetable gardens still offend officials’ laughable sense of what’s appropriate. That appropriateness in this case is little more than a dull…
America, Holiday
Happy Independence Day
by JOHN ADAMS •
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which…
America, Technology
An American Milestone: SpaceX’s Private Dragon Capsule Docks with International Space Station
by JOHN ADAMS •
Those who contend that America’s best days are behind her couldn’t be more wrong: Here’s video of the privately-created SpaceX Dragon supply capsule docking with the International Space Station. There are no crew inside the capsule, and the docking is automated. Many peoples cannot yet design and launch automated capsules like this, and America has…
America, Charity, Cycling
The Ride
by JOHN ADAMS •
Phil Keoghan’s 2011 documentary, The Ride, is about a charity bike ride across America to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. I saw the film this weekend on Showtime, and it was interesting from first to last. It was more than interesting – it was inspiring. Along the way, Keoghan and his comrades meet thousands…
America, Business
Chrysler’s Clint Eastwood Commercial, It’s Halftime, America
by JOHN ADAMS •
I held this commercial from the preceding post of my other favorites, because it’s both longer and different: its political themes separate it from a conventional commercial, even a conventional Super Bowl commercial (if there should be such a thing). There’s an optimism in this commercial that is, I think, justified: despite the most difficult…
America
Underestimating America’s Influence: Why America’s Not in Decline
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s been much talk, from generation to generation about the rise of the next global power to supplant America. The Soviet Union (yes, for many, this once seemed certain), Japan, and now China: in each instance, an insistence that America is in decline. (For a post that addresses myths about China, see Overestimating China’s influence: ‘Five myths about China’s power’.) At the New Republic,…
America
Ian Bremmer on why it’s ‘Far too soon to write off America’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Indeed, it is far too soon. America’s best days are yet ahead. Chinese officials who dream of their own dominance will be as disappointed as Japanese bureaucrats who dreamt the same scenario a generation ago. The world belongs neither to the selfish ambitions of those Japanese corporatist s nor to those of contemporary Chinese statists.…