Soul Searching and Deep Thinking – A Socratic Moment

Mike Magee You can say what you want about America’s current trajectory, but one thing’s for sure – there’s a lot of soul searching and deep thinking going on. Just this morning, I came across three different pieces – in The New Yorker, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the The New York Times – […]

The Planetary Patient “Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrDVzbeDzRk source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrDVzbeDzRk Mike Magee Hugh Jackman in 1998, in the film version of the Broadway classic, Oklahoma, sings “We know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand….you’re doing fine Oklahoma, Oklahoma OK.” But as this week’s The New Yorker article, Weather Underground, suggests, not so much these days. Okie […]

“It’s Changing Slowly. It’s Changing Slowly…It Changed!”

Mike Magee In a recent article in The New Yorker by Amy Wild, readers are introduced to award winning female architect Jeanne Gang who designed the acclaimed Aqua tower in Chicago. Gang’s specialty is the relationship between nature and culture, which helps explain the article’s deep dive into the issue of captive dolphins and aquarium […]

Pigouvian Tax vs. Norquistian Anarchy

Mike Magee Like many Americans, I’ve been following the tax debate. We seem to have moved from “no new taxes” to “what new taxes”. The New Yorker this week came out in favor of Pigouvian taxes.(1) Say what? Back in 1920, a British economist named Arthur Pugou, wrote a book called “The Economics of Welfare”, […]

Bill Novelli, C-TAC, and A Fresh Look At Palliative Care

Bill Novelli, professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, and former CEO of AARP, recently reflected on an article by Atul Gawande, M.D. in the New Yorker (1) on our system of care for Americans with advanced disease. Novelli agreed with Gawande that our system has “utterly failed” on a number of […]

The New Year: Searching For Our Common Future

As we launch 2011, one thing is certain. We will continue to weigh the value of individuality versus commonality. What do we have in common? How different are we really, and why? Do we have a common origin? What are the forces that shape our futures? As we look forward, take a moment to read […]