An Embarrassment Of Riches

Les Leopold On Forty Years Of Runaway Inequality

Our economy does not work for all of us. It works for a small handful of elites who are extracting as much wealth from it as they can.

Loyalty Rewards

In the fall of 1991 I was the lowest-ranking waiter at a steakhouse in Hampton, Virginia. My sole transportation was a Honda 350 motorcycle — halfway between a street bike and a moped — whose chain slipped at the most inopportune times.

People Are Starving

We didn’t know what it was to be desired. We didn’t know what girls’ bodies were supposed to look like. We just knew it was better for us if nothing stuck out too far.

Kids Today

Just one time I had done something nice. Just one time I had left some forlorn teenage girls an offering of chocolate and words, and suddenly I was the local pedophile. I hadn’t left them Fifty Shades of Grey.

Freedom From Delusion

The last time I was in London, I kept passing store windows full of tea towels and souvenir mugs with the motto Keep Calm and Carry On. I once read that when the British government dreamed up the slogan at the onset of World War II, the populace was insulted at being given advice that went without saying.

Chance

They talked about it while soaking in an unusually deep / red tub at his rented house. How the constellations / had gone out of their way to align, so that their paths / converged for a time in the redwoods, in a shingled / cottage above the creek.

My Sister Blazed Through Her Life

When she was young, she had a small part in a play, but everyone looked at her. Dull her down, the director said, throw an old coat over her. They did, but everyone still looked at her.