"Why do we tax, what do we tax, and how do we relate needs and scarce resources?" These questions don't normally lift the spirit and stir the soul. But when we asked four legal and finance experts to envision improvements in New Jersey's tax system during a CivicStory public forum on April 4 in Summit, the conversation led us to…
Read MoreThe New York Times recently reported that the average American throws away 10 single-use plastic bags per week. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that some eight million tons of plastic waste end up in the oceans each year. Even scarier, fish and shellfish eaters could be ingesting up to...
Read MoreI came to The Climate Reality presentation at MONDO ready to hear the latest thinking on climate change and the extreme weather events reported...
Read MoreElection Day has come and gone, and Phil Murphy will be New Jersey’s next governor. In follow-up interviews, three members of our Berkeley Heights "Voting Block" were willing and happy to share their post-election opinions with CivicStory reporter Mitchell Baker.
Read MoreBerkeley Heights Neighbors Place Education, Training, Environment, & Lower Taxes Top of List For New Governor
Elections can unite diverse cultures, heighten tensions between those cultures, and clarify citizens' views of their society. As an observer of a conversation between a group of Berkeley Heights citizens voicing their...
Read MoreAt first glance, Justin Gillis's full page Q & A about the environment (Sunday, September 25, NY Times) is intriguing and promising. Eye-catching illustrations by Jon Han depict ecological deterioration - from verdant and lush to arid and lifeless - and beckon readers to...
Read MoreCivicStory's Susan Haig was in downtown Greenville, South Carolina during the Solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. Here's her timeline.
2:12 pm - a crescent sun floods the crowded downtown riverfront park with...
Useful content that [readers] can refer back to for months or even years to come," is how writer Rachel Deahl defines "evergreen content" in The Balance, March 17: "What is Evergreen Content?"
Read MoreEncourages Unity Through Shared Worship; Defends School Board Decision to Honor Dr. King
This letter was published one month after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was read last Friday, June 16, by Rev. Dennison Harrield of Wallace Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church at Betty Haig's memorial service ...
Read MoreTrenton's historic slogan, Trenton Makes The World Takes, made news this week following an announcement that the neon red letters spanning the Delaware River at night...
Read MoreMaplewood's ordinance banning industrial leaf blowers from May 15 to September 30 has been characterized as targeting a single issue: noise. But Deputy Mayor Nancy Adams cites other factors that motivated the Township Committee members'...
Read MoreNew Jersey’s Public Employee Pension Fund is severely underfunded based on projected demands of future pension payments and retiree health care costs, which appear to be growing at an unsustainable pace. That is the conclusion...
Read MoreThe contentious tone of public discourse in the months leading up to the November U.S. presidential election has been widely acknowledged, as well as the public's desire for more 'news' and less 'opinion.' But another troubling aspect of news has been the tendency to personalize news stories...
Read MoreThe Nieman Journalism Lab—a project of Harvard University— has issued its annual round of predictions for the future of journalism in the coming year (double future tense is Nieman's.) from a wide swath of news professionals. These 200-plus short essays are candid...
Read More"The most important issue regarding cities is getting people to believe that things can be different," said Carol Coletta, Senior Fellow with the Kresge Foundation's American Cities Practice and luncheon keynote speaker for the second NJ Spotlight on Cities conference in Newark.
Read MoreAs creative director of a civics-based news site featuring videos about social change, I'm asked from time to time how CivicStory decides on topics for its stories. Answer: When initiatives have 4 or 5 significant or surprising elements that are of interest to a broad...
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CivicStory's successful June 9th benefit program began with a fascinating 'champagne tour' of Recharging the Image: Selections from the Mott-Warsh Collection guided by Curator Mary...
Read MoreYou may think that dictionaries are 'old hat' to young tech-savvy students. But to Franklin School 3rd Graders, they're "magnificent,"...
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President Obama's Commencement Address at Rutgers University -- the first by a sitting U.S. president - included key civic points...
Read MoreTwo hundred and fifty information theorists, scientists, engineers and researchers from around the world converged at Nokia Bell Labs in Murray Hill last Thursday and Friday to celebrate the centennial of mathematician Claude Shannon...
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