Always a brother.

My brother,  Mark T. Hoops, died on February 21 of this year (2015) after a six month sentence of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.  I miss him.  Everyone who knew him misses him, but most of all, his wife, his son, and his daughter feel the loss.  And, in a much different way, my brother Brian and…
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[Publisher’s Letter] | By John R. MacArthur

[Publisher’s Letter] | By John R. MacArthur.     When I began my tenure as publisher of Harper’s Magazine nearly thirty years ago, my biggest challenge — or so I thought at the time — was to get advertising agencies to pay more attention to the celebrated journal of American ideas and literature entrusted to my care. Harper’s had tens…
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Stick to the Core.

Since I wrote this (five months ago as of this writing) more arguments have been added to the four I here enumerate.   The opposition is metastasizing, grabbing headlines like nobody could have predicted in December.  I will include those new arguments — and my counter-arguments — in red.   There are four main arguments against the…
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New York City.

the starlings and the pigeons in city hall park the traffic coming off the brooklyn bridge then into the subway and under the river a transfer later and up into the brooklyn air walking for no purpose on 8th avenue staring at passing fences then it’s william gaynor’s house but somebody’s removed the stoop nothing…
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2014.

It’s always fascinating to look to the new year. All we can do is guess what’s going to happen. Will we be okay? Will all our loved ones be okay? What’s the worst thing that will happen?  Every year has its ups and downs. Not many are as bad as 1941, 1963, 1968, and 2001. All…
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The “Defense” budget

Talk about a bunch of doggerel: six hundred billion dollars for “defense.”  They used to call it the War Department, before 1945; unless there was a war, they didn’t really have all that much to do.  But defense?  Ah.  Everyone’s against war, but nobody can be against defense, or you’re anti-American. Well, the Senate just passed a…
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Well, this certainly stinks.

Pine beetles have been destroying the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.  Of course, they didn’t just recently develop an appetite for pines: they are called pine beetles, after all.  Unfortunately, our very love of trees is leading to their destruction.  Fire is a natural friend of the forest — and it’s hard for us to imagine…
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Letter to NYSDOT re: Preserving the Rails.

September 14, 2013 Raymond F. Hessinger, Director, Freight & Passenger Rail Bureau, NYS Department of Transportation, 50 Wolf Road, POD 54, Albany, NY 12232. Dear Sir: I strongly support the maintenance of the rail system in the Lake Placid – Remsen travel corridor. The sudden and aggressive nature of the rails-to-trails folks has all the hallmarks of a…
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