“Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.” -  John Updike
Browse: Home / Culture / Government & Society

Government & Society

Planting Our Seed

By Vihar Sheth on February 9, 2010

I love reading about ideas. I come across new ones every almost day, but every now and then one sticks out as either quite remarkable or quite original. Such is this idea from Michael Mautner, Research Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University, who claims seeding the universe with life is not just an option [...]

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 1 Response

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service

By Vihar Sheth on January 19, 2010

With a little motivation from my brother, he and his wife and my wife and I decided to do a little community service on an oddly foggy Monday morning in St. Louis. We headed north from our respective homes to the College Hill neighborhood on the  north side of St. Louis City to clean up some [...]

Posted in | Tagged , , | Leave a response

Aftershock

By Vihar Sheth on January 14, 2010

In response to the earthquake and 40+ aftershocks in Haiti, CNN.com has put up a page up called “What we’re hearing via social media“. The page is streaming updates from Haiti as they’re coming in, and while the page claims to have updates from various social media everything I’ve read so far is from Twitter. [...]

Posted in , | Tagged , , | Leave a response

St. Louis County Council Places Transit Tax On The Ballot

By Vihar Sheth on January 13, 2010

I just got this from Citizens for Modern Transit this morning:
The St. Louis County Council voted in December to place a ½ cent general sales tax on the ballot on April 6 for transit operations and expansion including MetroLink. Without the passage of this measure, Metro will be cutting more than 30 percent of it [...]

Posted in , | Tagged , , | 2 Responses

How Much Hate Is Actually Out There?

By Vihar Sheth on January 11, 2010

There’s nothing like reading about hate crimes during your Monday morning work out. Seriously, there’s nothing like it. While “ellipticizing” to nowhere for 28 minutes I read, among other articles, two recent pieces on hate crimes in the most recent issue of Utne Reader. The first, “A Conspiracy of Hate,” is by Larry Keller and [...]

Posted in | Tagged , , , , | Leave a response

Our Last Best Chance

By Vihar Sheth on December 7, 2009

I’m approaching 30,000 words. While I’ve been moving at a much slower pace than I’d like, I’m coming up with a few subplots that will hopefully help my story. Tortoise and the hare, tortoise and the hare.
What some people are calling the last best chance for humanity to save itself from climate change starts today [...]

Posted in , , | Tagged , , , | Leave a response

Under Water With Only Five Days Left

By Vihar Sheth on November 25, 2009

Naming these posts is difficult. I’ve just been combining words and phrases for the topics being discussed into something that doesn’t really make sense by itself. This could be “my thing”.
25,000 words down and 25,000 left to go. Hitting the halfway mark felt good, though I wish I did it about ten days ago. There [...]

Posted in , | Tagged , , | Leave a response

Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance

By Vihar Sheth on September 1, 2009

Share / Save

Posted in | Tagged | Leave a response

Health Care – Another Perspective

By Vihar Sheth on September 1, 2009

I’ve posted below snippets from an editorial which appeared in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
A St. Louisan’s view of the British National Health Service
BY Reva Klein
Tuesday, Sep. 01 2009
LONDON

“I’ve lived here since 1973, and whenever I visit my hometown of St. Louis, or anywhere else in the United States for that matter, I’m invariably regaled with friends’ [...]

Posted in | Tagged , | Leave a response

Is “Cash for Clunkers” a clunker?

By Vihar Sheth on August 4, 2009

I’m not always in agreement with David Nicklaus but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch business columnist makes a good case against the Cash for Clunkers program. For those of you unfamiliar with Cash for Clunkers, its a stimulus program that gives people with “clunkers” rebates ($3,500 or $4,500) for turning them in when purchasing a new, [...]

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 5 Responses

Next »

Switch to our mobile site