On Getting a “MacArthur”
By Donella Meadows
–June 16, 1994–
This is how it happens. Out of the blue on a bright June morning you get a phone call from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, saying you have just been named a MacArthur Fellow.
You say, “This is a joke, right?”
They assure you it isn’t.
If you work in a field favored by the MacArthur [...]
What to Do About Thugs in Power?
By Donella Meadows
–June 9, 1994–
One day after he celebrated the 50th anniversary of D-Day, President Clinton, still in France, agreed to hand over half of Bosnia to the Serbs.
He had resisted doing that for more than a year, pointing out that it amounts to rewarding the most brutal genocide the world has seen since Hitler.
How he could time his capitulation [...]
The Dream of a Better City Is Always in the Heads of its Residents
By Donella Meadows
–June 2, 1994–
The citizens of Curitiba, Brazil, think they live in the best city in the world, and a lot of outsiders agree with them. Curitiba has 17 new parks, 90 miles of bike paths, trees everywhere, and traffic and garbage systems that officials from other cities come to study. Curitiba’s mayor for 12 years, Jaime Lerner, has [...]
Is Development the Best Contraceptive–Or Are Contraceptives?
By Donella Meadows
–May 26, 1994–
Journal articles full of statistics are not usually causes of concern at the State Department, but a recent one about family planning was controversial enough to make one Clinton appointee ask another to remove his name from it. That was a shame, because both protagonists — Timothy Wirth, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, and Lawrence [...]
Dear Folks: May 23, 1994
Dear Folks,
Having sailed through the Winter From Hell — 35 below and snowstorm after snowstorm — without the slightest sniffle, I woke up yesterday on one of the most brilliant days of the spring with a seized-up throat. Last night I tossed around and built up towers of pillows, trying to keep one nostril open — you know how much [...]
