President Trump on the Abraham Path Transpartisan Note #47 by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner The Abraham Path is a cultural route celebrating a journey made 4,000 years ago by Abraham, the common patriarch of the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. USA Today says, “President Trump has billed his [May 2017] visit to Saudi Arabia, Israel and…
A. Lawrence Chickering
Search For Common Ground, Transpartisan In Action Transpartisan Note #46 by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner Daryl Davis, African-American R&B and blues musician, worked to improve race relations by personally engaging with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Known for his energetic style of Boogie-woogie piano, he bonded with Klansmen who loved his music. He engaged using…
Educate Girls Globally (EGG), founded by Lawry Chickering nearly twenty years ago, has enjoyed extraordinary success promoting positive social changes in the most “difficult” populations in rural India. The most important of these are cultural—from premodern, pre-individualist, role-driven values to more modern, individualist, conscious values.
September 11, 2001 (9/11) Canadian air traffic control diverted 38 wide-bodied, US-bound airliners to the Gander, Newfoundland, Northeast Canada airfield. The town of Gander, population 10,000, suddenly found itself host to 6,600 stranded passengers and several hundred crew. Come From Away, the Broadway musical story of their five days together in Gander, captures their shared experiences.
March 6, 1857, Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, wrote the 7-2 Dred Scott opinion finding that “a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves,” whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen.
On March 6, 2017, the 160th anniversary of that infamous decision—the worst in court history, historians say—Justice Taney’s descendant, Charles Taney of Greenwich, Connecticut, apologized to Dred Scott’s great-great-granddaughter under the gaze of a Roger Taney statue installed on the Maryland State House grounds in 1872.
Ownership As Key To Empowerment Revisiting the Transpartisan Matrix by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner The Four-Quadrant Transpartisan Matrix distinguishes the values of freedom (self-expression) and order (tradition for the right, justice for the left) that are important for both conservatives and progressives. We believe the “four-quadrant” format more completely represents what most people value than the simple…
Critics left, right, and other, including us from time to time, find it easy to pillory and mock President Trump’s erratic, unpredictable, and apparently highly inconsistent style of leadership. They call him “child,” “clown,” and bumbling amateur. Then the President’s response to the horrendous pictures of gassed civilians leading to the American bombing of Syria reminds us that, as President, he wields enormous power that deserves, nay, requires, more than mockery.
Transpartisan Tax Time by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner Now Tax Reform arrives on the Congressional agenda. Congress sees the problem as not enough money to pay for all the projects, programs and material that everyone wants. The budget remains unbalanced. Lawmakers feel pressured by constituents, who they feel want all kinds of services but balk at paying…
Transpartisan Health Within Reach? by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner Through the smoldering ruins of the most recent healthcare financing reform effort we see the faint outlines of a transpartisan approach to health care. Former President Barack Obama issued a statement on the 7th anniversary of passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), one day before current Congressional…
Our friend and colleague Steven P. Cohen, scholar, spiritual leader, and transpartisan activist, passed away at the age of 71 at his home in Teaneck, NJ, on January 25, 2017. For three decades Steve was the “silent broker” of peace talks in the Middle East—”the lone guerilla warrior of peace,” one Israeli politician called him.