The Nature of Things

Bob Herbert's op-ed columns in The New York Times have very often been beacons of light in the darkness. His writing is always characterized by clear thinking, by ideas stated simply and understandably, by an elegance of writing that I can only admire and never hope to emulate. Sadly for his readers, in his latest - and last - column, he announced that he is leaving The Times. His absence will leave a void in public discourse that will be hard to fill. Herbert's last column is titled "Losing Our Way" and it is all about how America of the 21st century is a place where "Overwhelming imbalances in wealth and income inevitably result in enormous imbalances of political power. So the corporations and the very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed. The wars never end. And nation-building never gets a foothold here at home." Goodness knows this nation of failing infrastructures, growing poverty, and millions of people who ...

I read Bob Herbert's latest column in The New York Times and now I'm so depressed that I just want to curl up into a tiny fetal ball and pull the covers over my head. The topic of this column - as are the topics of most of his columns - is the state of the country. He doesn't pull any punches regarding what he believes that state to be. "We're in denial about the extent of the rot in the system, and the effort that would be required to turn things around. It will likely take many years, perhaps a decade or more to get employment back to a level at which one could fairly say the economy is thriving." This is especially true since one of the major political parties in the country is not interested in governing or in trying to make things work better. Instead, they are betting everything on doing nothing and letting the country slide ever farther into decline and decay in the hope that that will limit President Obama to one term. That is their only concern,...