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Rebranding Deathcare for the 21st Century – How Eastern ideas can help us overcome Western prejudices against death
[This presentation was given at Amherst College, in May, 2024.] Hi, I’m J.G. Sandom, class of ‘79E. E because I took a semester off and worked on a freighter that sailed to Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique, a trip that became the inspiration for my honors thesis here at Amherst, and eventually my debut novel,…
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The Mooney and the Bonefish
The Mooney 252 taxied up the runway, making for the little thatch-roofed hut that marked the only semblance of civilization in this southernmost town of the Yucatan, when the soldiers first materialized out of the jungle. They were dressed in camouflage fatigues, carrying M-16s, and they were pointing them at us. By the time my…
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The “Helping Hand” vs. The “Fighting Fist”
Much is made by conservative economists and pundits alike of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” and the benefits of free market forces to drive efficiencies and lower costs. Unbridled competition is the natural order of things, they contend. In contrast, I would argue that if free markets were truly free, laissez-faire economics would not be so…
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Op-Ed: The Power of Memory — On the 120th Anniversary of the Sinking of the General Slocum
June 15th marks the 120th anniversary of the greatest disaster in New York City history prior to 9/11. On that day in 1904, over a thousand New Yorkers, mostly German immigrants on a Church outing, died when the General Slocum steamship caught fire and sank in the East River. For weeks thereafter, the shores of Manhattan and…