I RECEIVED NEWS RECENTLY that an old friend has had some health issues, so I trekked to Las Vegas to see her and catch up. I hadn’t seen her for almost five years, and I found much had changed with her — and in Vegas; my friend because of her illness, and Vegas because the […]
Matt Talbot: Poverty is not the result of moral failings
CONSERVATIVE NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST DAVID BROOKS is a fixture in a national media that caters to the upper middle class and professoriate. He not only has a Times column; he also appears weekly on the PBS “NewsHour” television program, and on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” He writes for The Atlantic Monthly, the […]
Matt Talbot: Transitions and roadblocks
I’VE MENTIONED A FEW TIMES IN THIS SPACE that I’ve spent the last 30 years transitioning from a rock-ribbed conservative Republican to the kind of sensible, level-headed liberalism that would have been recognizable to FDR or Harry Truman. A big part of that had to do with my sense that the Republican Party spent that […]
Matt Talbot: Economic moment of truth approaches
ON FEB. 12, REUTERS REPORTED THE FOLLOWING: “U.S. consumer spending barely rose in January as households cut back on purchases of a range of goods, suggesting the economy started the first quarter on a softer note. “Sluggish spending came despite cheap gasoline and a buoyant labor market, leaving economists to speculate that consumers were using […]
Matt Talbot: Conquering materialism
SINCE YESTERDAY WAS ASH WEDNESDAY, the beginning of Lent for the world’s Christians, I thought I might talk a bit today about my love of our deserts here in the West, and what they have taught me. The desert as an image is pervasive in the Bible, from the place through which Moses led Israel […]
Matt Talbot: Farewell to our court jester
SINCE THE NEWS BROKE TUESDAY that Jon Stewart will retire this year as host of the satirical Comedy Central program “The Daily Show,” I thought I would devote some column space this week to Stewart and what he has accomplished in his 16 years as host. When Stewart took over from the show’s original host […]
Matt Talbot: The coming progressive uprising
EVEN THOUGH REGULAR READERS OF THIS COLUMN will know that I’m a Democrat and a liberal on most issues, I am actually pretty discouraged about the prospects for social progress in the United States in the near future. Looking at the economic situation faced by Americans, I see a recipe for social unrest. While plenty […]
Matt Talbot: ‘Beloved Community’
IN LAST WEEK’S COLUMN, I said that Dr. Martin Luther King sought not to defeat his opponents, but to be reconciled with them. Dr King said, at the successful conclusion of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956: “(T)he end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It […]
Matt Talbot: Dr. King’s mission
MONDAY WAS THE 86TH ANNIVERSARY of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., so I thought I would share some thoughts about his life and legacy. My first encounter with Dr. King’s reputation as a public figure was as a student at my elementary school in Richmond. I was 6 years old in 1968, […]
Matt Talbot: The circle
I HAVE WRITTEN RECENTLY THAT THE U.S. ECONOMY IS SHOWING SIGNS of strengthening and shifting into a higher gear. The direct benefits are straightforward — more jobs for fresh entrants into the workforce, plus long-delayed hope that things will take a turn for the better for the longer-term unemployed. But also worth mentioning are some […]