Wash, Post, The moral paradox of extreme wealth.
The gap that extreme wealth creates among people does not just mean some have far more; it means a minority have the power to ensure that the majority has far less.
The paradox of wealth is also that accumulating more money and material prosperity often leads to diminishing marginal returns in personal happiness, causing psychological isolation, heightened financial anxiety, and a decrease in the overall value that additional income provides to an individual's well-being.
So there is a point of diminishing returns where additional wealth may actually even become counter-productive to
personal well-being and peace of mind.
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Dimensions of the Wealth Paradox
- Diminishing Marginal Utility: Each extra dollar added to a large fortune generates less direct psychological and welfare benefit than the dollar just before it, meaning that money flows to where it has the least meaningful impact.
- Social Isolation: Extreme wealth can alienate other people, creating guarded relationships where wealthy individuals suspect others are attracted only to their money rather than a genuine connection.
- Heightened Anxiety: Rather than securing peace of mind, high net worth can amplify the fear of losing status, resources, or the wealth itself.
- The Value Mismatch: Focusing strictly on financial portfolios often starves the owner of emotional health, community ties, and a true sense of belonging.
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People, Legendary musician and philanthropist Dolly Parton dead at 80 after ‘bravely facing a brief battle with cancer’
Our flags are at half-staff for Dolly right now here in Berkeley Springs. So RIP, Dolly Parton. When I die, maybe my son can arrange half-staff for me, just here in town.- /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
- Today, my son and I visited the Berkeley Springs Senior Center, which provides free transportation and serves a hot lunch.
Trump criticism leads to rare criminal charges for Air Force officer who called for impeachment
He has now been arrested. US Air Force Major Jason Watson has been formally charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) following public remarks and protests calling for the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump.
Free speech is not allowed now in the military, according to Donald J. Trump.
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Wife of active-duty Army sergeant deported amid Trump's immigration campaign
Is this what Trump voters really wanted? To have the family members of active-duty military deported? Do we really want communities to be torn apart by these overly aggressive deportations? Probably not when they happen to people we actually know.
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Donald Trump has certainly made his mark in history by continuing to stir the political pot, arousing both supporters and opponents all around the world. Will we ever be able to go back to "normal" partisan politics after Trump is finally out of orbit?
And will climate change start moving human populations further north to Canada, Scandinavia, and even Greenland? And also toward the South Pole? The US has less influence with people living farther away from its own borders.
Wash. Post, Trump says U.S. could rename Lake Ontario as Lake America
He has already tried to rename the Gulf of Mexico, so why not the Great Lakes?
I still have family in Alberta, where my late father was born. Canada will, of
course, continue to totally resist Donald Trump.
Canada announces retaliatory tariffs in the wake of Trump threats. I feel some loyalty to Canada as my late father was born in Alberta and I still have relatives living there now.
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Kennedy Center finances deteriorated sharply after Trump name change
Now Donald Trump has suggested tearing the center down. That's one way to try to obliterate the Kennedy legacy.
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President Trump expects Supreme Court justices whom he has named to simply do his bidding, which sometimes they do, though not always. And the justices will be around much longer than the president will be in office. So Donald, just remember: "separation of powers!"
Here next is one place where the high Court seems to have gone Trump's way.
University of Minnesota, Each measles case in 2025 US outbreak cost almost $60,000, study estimates, or $134 million total
Hey, RFK Jr., wouldn't vaccination actually be much cheaper and considerably less risky for children than simply avoiding it? Kids would no longer be getting sick and possibly dying. So how about showing greater support now for vaccination? Vaccination is as effective in conferring immunity as is getting sick, even if the child survives, which is not always the case, and lifelong disabilities are likely after actually coming down with a disease. Letting kids get sick and maybe even dying is not the best way to support life-long immunity. Vaccines vary from 94% to almost 100% effectiveness; they don't result in death and are expected to last a lifetime.
2 people die from measles in Pennsylvania, marking state's first deaths in 35 years
OK, RFK Jr., these recent deaths are now on you. You have undermined trust in vaccines, so some folks aren't getting their kids vaccinated as they should. Vaccines have allowed a big step forward in disease control and prevention. Smallpox was the first and that illness has been totally eradicated worldwide.
And Donald Trump as president also bears responsibility for having appointed you and for still keeping you on the job, given your blatantly counterproductive and very harmful health guidance. RFK Jr., you are now actually the illness and death czar, not actually our health czar.
Deadly smallpox was the target of the first vaccination ever developed and smallpox is now gone. It was officially declared eradicated globally by the World Health Organization on May 8, 1980.
The same could happen with measles if vaccination for measles becomes more widespread
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Here is another child's death, but here RFK Jr. is not to blame.
CNN, 8-year-old dies from rare brain-eating amoeba likely contracted while swimming in Louisiana lake.
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The Hill,
Trump administration prepares to revoke 200,000 visas of asylum applicants
Although asylum applicants have had their visas granted only after an arduous and very lengthy vetting process,
it now takes Donald Trump less than a minute to actually revoke all those visas. Even though his own mother
and wife have been immigrants, he now simply doesn't like having any immigrants here at all.
Kennedy Center finances deteriorated sharply after Trump name change
Performers no longer want to appear there and the audience has dwindled, so revenues are way down. The Trump
name has become toxic. So Donald Trump has now suggested tearing down the Kennedy
Center. That would successfully eradicate a part of the Kennedy legacy,
So many Americans and other people all around the world will heave a huge sigh of relief when Trump and his
appointees are all gone from office. Donald Trump is vying with Ulysses S. Grant for the title of the very worst
president ever in American history.
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What are the odds of getting struck by lightning?
The odds of being struck by lightning in any given year in the United States are roughly 1 in 1.2 million. But if lightning actually hits you, your odds are 100%
People, On August 23, 2026, 31-year-old Kenya Glasgow and her 2-year-old daughter, Kennedi, were tragically killed by a lightning strike in Margate, Florida.
Yes, mother and daughter are now both dead. They were struck by lightning getting out of a car. If Mom had just stayed inside the car, they would have been safe, both still alive today.
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Dozens Massacred in Haiti, Officials Say, Heightening Fears of Gangs - The New York Times
Having visited Haiti and stayed at the Hotel Oloffson when Haiti was still the country described by Graham Greene,
it's hard for me to imagine what it is like there now.
The Hotel Oloffson where I had stayed years ago was in the heart of Port-au-Prince. It was memorialized
by Graham Greene in his novel The Comedians, but now has now been burned down to the ground.
Better for me to remember Haiti as it was and not to see what that country has become.
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Liberia once offered Black Americans a new home. Decades on, it is receiving migrants the US wants out
[Correction to that headline, the US doesn't want these folks out; only Donald Trump is actually who wants them all out. Many of us really want them to stay right here, and just to deport Mr. Trump instead.]
Members of the Liberian senate of 1893, mostly just freed African American slaves, posed together for a group portrait. Now the US is once again sending folks to Liberia.
A number of cities in Europe were once protected by walls back during medieval times and some still have them now, like Carcassonne in France. ================================================================
Here below is an amazingly cogent long email just now received from Denise, a good friend in California who is totally blind, someone who has worked both as a tap-dancer and as a braille writing instructor. She once visited me all by herself when I was in the Peace Corps in Honduras. She and her partially-sighted husband now have 2 teenage kids with normal sight. From my long experience with blind and partially-sighted folks after 24 years of marriage to a totally blind man, I would say that any amount of sight is quite useful, even just a narrow field of vision.
Below is the message I've just received from my friend Denise. A photo of her appears in my Honduras book on page 255, showing her instructing a blind man on using braille during her visit to me in Honduras about 25 years ago
Hi Barbara,
I apologize that it has taken me some time to get back to you. All is OK. Things have been busy even though I only work on campus two days a week for the Lighthouse For The Blind San Francisco Earle Baum campus in Santa Rosa. They have major funding issues so I was laid off last year from a full-time job and then rehired in July of last year for a two-day a week position. So I've been doing it for a year now at two days. Sometimes I wonder how I ever worked full-time because I stay busy. Unfortunately, I am not doing all the dance lessons and performing that I was doing. First of all, my instructor left the studio to pursue his other dreams down in Southern California. Although there are some other great instructors, he was the one I worked with most. Secondly, since I only work two days a week, my funds are extremely limited. Arthur Murray Dance Studios are very expensive for their lessons. They cost $155 a lesson. So I instead have started to take guitar lessons. It is fun and hard, but I miss the dancing. I will try to get a picture of my family to send you, but I need their help to pick one out.
My son DE is 20. He did not graduate high school, but is working on his GED. He has been working the last two years at a health food grocery store. Just this past week he was let go, so he'll have to either get into school again or look for another job. Our daughter Sophia is a senior in high school this year. She goes to two classes on campus in person and the remainder of the classes she does through independent study. She just got her driver's license last month so we have been very very busy looking for cars for her. It has been difficult because we want something very safe as she is a new driver, and she will be driving us around, and a used one, as we could never afford a new car, and then have to have it checked out by a mechanic since we really don't know anything about cars. It looks like we found one and we'll be dealing with the documentation, payments this week, if it all works out. We are going for a Subaru outback.
I still have my Guide dog KILBY. He will be three in November. As I broke my ankle for the fifth time last October, I now have to walk with my Guide dog also using my white cane. As the kids are older, I don't have to meet them at school anymore, and I only work two days a week and don't go to many places, but I feel bad. He does not get the exercise with me. So, Ben [her partially-sighted husband] will walk with him to his work downtown some of the days. Ben is an employment civil rights lawyer on the prosecution side.
