Essays by Paula Clark
Reflections
and Rabbit Holes
Exploring how today’s news shapes our everyday lives and what history can tell us about how we got here and what tomorrow may bring.
Let’s talk about
how we got here…
Some things I read in the news stay with me long after I’ve closed the page. I want to understand how they happened, what made them possible, and what they might mean for the country we’re living in.
That’s where these essays begin. I follow the questions into the reporting and, often, into history. Then I write about what I find, including the parts I’m still trying to understand.
More about this project…and where we may be headed.
The decisions being made today will affect our lives long after they leave the headlines. I want to understand what those policies could mean for us, including consequences that may take years to become clear. History can help us ask better questions about what might follow, even when it can’t give us a certain answer.
I’m also interested in ideas we haven’t tried yet, or familiar ideas getting another look. What might they change in our everyday lives? What can we learn from places that have tried them, and what would it take to make them work here?
I’ll follow those questions, too, looking at the evidence and the assumptions behind the proposals. I want to understand which ideas deserve a closer look and hear what others see in them, especially when their experience differs from mine.
Publications I Follow
These are publications I turn to as I think through the questions behind these essays.
- Letters from an American
Heather Cox Richardson
- The Bulwark
The essays
The first conversation is coming.
I’m working on the opening essay. When it’s ready, you’ll find it here, with links to the sources that helped me think it through.