Sean Meriwether's Blog: The Green Economist / en-US Sat, 21 Nov 2020 00:24:10 -0800 60 Sean Meriwether's Blog: The Green Economist / 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg /author_blog_posts/20623765-now-departing-from-gate Fri, 20 Nov 2020 14:59:32 -0800 Now Departing from Gate� /author_blog_posts/20623765-now-departing-from-gate NY Dispatch: Two weeks ago I did something that I wasn’t sure I was going to do for a long time. I got on a plane. A short vacation that was timed in the trough between the summer wave of COVID-19 cases and the tsunami that is cresting as we head into winter. It was going to be now or much, much later.





It took some time to figure out where to go since so many countries have barred entry to Americans; our rate of infection is completely out of control. There are only a handful of places left, ...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 21 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20619475-you-can-t-stay-here Thu, 19 Nov 2020 16:05:46 -0800 You can’t stay here� /author_blog_posts/20619475-you-can-t-stay-here NY Dispatch: As they say when the bars close, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here. This is the message US voters gave to the future ex-president, ending the 4th season of his White House Reality Show. President-elect Joe Biden has secured a comfortable margin of electoral votes, ensuring a pathway to become the 46th president of the United States. True to form the 45th president has refused to concede, which he does not legally have to do. No matter how he tries to stall he will be...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 20 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20567261-the-lying-game Fri, 06 Nov 2020 10:28:15 -0800 The Lying Game /author_blog_posts/20567261-the-lying-game NY Dispatch: The president is ending his cancelled series of The Apprentice at the White House the same way he began it, with finger-pointing, half-truths, and dangerous lies. Last night he delivered a deranged 17-minute diatribe that was so full of brazen lies about the election that many of the major networks felt a responsibility to not just fact check him, but cut away from his paranoid ramblings. My question is, what took them so long? For 5 and a half years various media channels have prov...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 07 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20563111-the-waiting-game Thu, 05 Nov 2020 15:19:19 -0800 The Waiting Game /author_blog_posts/20563111-the-waiting-game NY Dispatch: It seems that there are only two things going on in the world today, but that is hardly the case. Hurricane Eta is lashing Central America and headed for the Caribbean and South Florida. Massive protests are continuing in Poland to support women’s rights and in Belarus against a stolen election. Uighur Muslims are still being held in concentration camps in China and immigrant children are still being held in detention centers apart from their parents. The US formally withdrew from t...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 06 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20559120-inching-to-the-finish Wed, 04 Nov 2020 17:40:27 -0800 Inching to the Finish /author_blog_posts/20559120-inching-to-the-finish NY Dispatch: Last night the world watched anxiously as the results came in, state by state, their outlines colored red, pink, light blue, dark blue, and gray. Pundits opined breathlessly about what it all meant, slicing and dicing our population into bitesize demographics. They assigned a herd mentality to groups divided by age, gender, and race. As the early results came in, it was a flashback to 2016 when our enthusiasm eroded into dismay and then despair. Last night we thought we were waking ...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 05 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20554848-november-3rd Tue, 03 Nov 2020 12:15:53 -0800 November 3rd /author_blog_posts/20554848-november-3rd NY Dispatch: It seems like a lifetime ago, but we started talking about the 2020 election before the 2016 election was decided. The president started to fund his reelection campaign immediately after moving into the White House, giddy that people were throwing money at him when banks refused to loan him money because of the risk of nonpayment. It feels like the longest four years are about to come to an end, but this is only the beginning of the next chapter. Will it be a rerun of alternative re...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 04 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20550386-home-grown Mon, 02 Nov 2020 15:10:32 -0800 Home Grown /author_blog_posts/20550386-home-grown NY Dispatch: On Sunday the 18th a in support of the president invaded my town. They drove up and down Main Street in their pickups and SUVs, shouting, honking, and waving the flag of their leader. I learned later that they circulated around Westchester making a general nuisance of themselves. At the time I was concerned that they had a larger agenda of voter intimidation, especially since their parade was a week before early voting started in New York. So it came as no surprise t...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 03 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20546036-d-a-de-muertos Sun, 01 Nov 2020 14:09:04 -0800 Día de Muertos /author_blog_posts/20546036-d-a-de-muertos NY Dispatch: A lifetime ago in 2019 my husband and I were on the Lower East side celebrating Halloween with friends who travel off the beaten path. They took us to an Eastern European costume party where the music was fantastic, a mélange of 80s hits and Balkan tunes, and the crowd was eager to party. Later we paraded around the East Village with hundreds of others in costume, moving from one bar to another, running into people they knew along the way. It was a warm, exciting night full of adven...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 02 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20542228-blessed-samhain Sat, 31 Oct 2020 14:02:23 -0700 Blessed Samhain /author_blog_posts/20542228-blessed-samhain NY Dispatch: Like many of our modern traditions, the origins of Halloween can be traced back millennia to pagan rituals. Celtic-speaking countries held fall celebrations to mark the end of the harvest and the transition into winter. These traditions may stem back to ancient Roman feasts and festivals for the dead, known as Parentalia, which became more commonly known as Samhain, an old Irish word that means “summer’s end.� Samhain was one of the most important holidays in the Gaelic calendar in ...



posted by Sean Meriwether on November, 01 ]]> /author_blog_posts/20537965-science-over-superstition Fri, 30 Oct 2020 14:53:34 -0700 Science over Superstition /author_blog_posts/20537965-science-over-superstition NY Dispatch: Imagine that when you were in school you told your teacher that you didn’t believe in what you were taught and to defend your rights you were not going to take any exams. Perhaps you may have been seen as a rebel, but you would have failed, maybe flunked out of school. Your career options would have been limited and it is unlikely that you would become the president of the United States. However, that is our reality today. The student who didn’t believe in facts is running his reali...



posted by Sean Meriwether on October, 31 ]]>