On the Square Today

Russell E. Saltzman on the residue of death :

The dead are not really dead. They hang around to pester us. Not as ghosts, no; I don’t believe in ghosts. Nor do I mean the dead “live on” in our memory and in our hearts, nor even necessarily—as I’ve noted before—that they now have “gone on” to a “better place.” This isn’t the time to go all metaphysical, anyway.

Also today, Michael W. Hannon, David J. Pederson, and Peter A. Blair on the Occupy Movement and the injustices of inequality :

Many conservatives have objected to the Occupy Movement’s focus on inequality by pointing to its refusal to offer an overarching analysis or slate of policies. This objection is, of course, hardly original to the movement’s conservative detractors. Indeed, even its most outspoken supporters have often lamented that Occupy lacks a coherent position and a decisive direction. Yet despite these and other obvious problems with the Occupy Movement, we should not be too quick to dismiss its criticisms of our contemporary economic circumstances.