American Dream

By Joanna Weiss These last few weeks have been fairly rotten, PR-wise, for certain segments of the 1 percent, between the well-paid JPMorgan Chase traders who lost a cool $2 billion to the Liberty Mutual executives whose excesses have been documented so amusingly by the Globe's Brian McGrory. The quest for more money, and then still more, has always been a part of the American psyche. But what if most people don't care as much about all of that anymore? That's the suggestion from a new national poll commissioned by Boston public relations firm Solomon McCown, which is hosting a...

By Joanna Weiss These last few weeks have been fairly rotten, PR-wise, for certain segments of the 1 percent, between the well-paid JPMorgan Chase traders who lost a cool $2 billion to the Liberty Mutual executives whose excesses have been documented so amusingly by the Globe's Brian McGrory. The quest for more money, and then still more, has always been a part of the American psyche. But what if most people don't care as much about all of that anymore? That's the suggestion from a new national poll commissioned by Boston public relations firm Solomon McCown, which is hosting a...

A YEAR ago this week, I became an American. The ceremony took place a couple of days after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Faneuil Hall, where more than 400 of us had assembled to take the oath of citizenship. Looking around, I realized I hadn't done this properly. Most people had installed family and friends in the balcony with cameras, ready to record the moment and celebrate afterwards. I'd come alone, hoping it would be over in time for me to pick up my son from school. "We may all have come on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now," said the presiding judge, quoting...

Conservatives have turned America into an "irritable and skeptical nation," and liberals must forcefully defend their values, Governor Deval Patrick argues in a new political manifesto designed to further elevate him into the national debate. The themes of the 100-page e-book released Tuesday are in keeping with the Patrick brand - warm rhetoric about the aspirations that unite all Americans, spiked with sharp, partisan attacks on Republicans - that the governor has been honing in cable television appearances and speeches to Democratic groups nationwide.

RE "FED'S housing ideas won't fix market" (Op-ed, Jan. 13): Here's the storyline that's developed with respect to real estate and its role in the recession: During the recent drop in real estate values, a significant percentage of home buyers were not able to make their mortgage payments and were foreclosed upon. This was because they were unqualified, bankers were greedy and made risky loans, and the securitization of mortgages was not regulated enough and went haywire. Yet in fact, the vast majority of home buyers, including those of low and moderate income, have met, and continue to meet,...

I WRITE in regard to the letter to the editor from Marjorie Generazzo ("Language barrier," Sept. 20), which advocates that the United States require immigrants to speak English before coming here. I wonder where she and millions of others would be had that been the US policy 100 years ago. My grandparents came from Italy knowing no English; my father learned to speak it when he attended public school. He went on to be valedictorian of his college class and a distinguished professor of economics.

The last thing you might expect from Eddie Izzard, the gonzo standup comic and proud heterosexual transvestite, is a masterful dramatic TV performance. The second-to-last-thing you might expect is to find the flamingly British Izzard so very convincing as a scrappy American making a play for the American dream, with its boxy McMansions and Corian countertops. But Izzard is a great surprise in FX's "The Riches," and just one of this fascinating new series' unexpectedly soulful pleasures.

Very late in "Bigger, Stronger, Faster," a hugely entertaining personal documentary about what steroids mean to American pop culture, director Christopher Bell thinks to ask the simplest question of all: "What's the problem with being a normal guy?" The film as a whole struggles to provide answers, but at that point Bell just cuts to George C. Scott as "Patton," barking that "America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser. " Sometimes it's as easy as that. Because "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" views the issue through the filmmaker's own family,...

WATERTOWN -- The irony behind the title of Sam Shepard's "True West" is both delicious and tragic. There is no true west, and even if there were, it is not a place of discovery and re-invention. In his 1980 play, Shepard seemingly celebrates the mythology of the Hollywood western only to subvert it. He does so by investing two brothers with the ability to dream the American dream only to pull the rug out from under them. Those brothers, Austin and Lee, are as different from each other as blue states from red. Austin is an Ivy League graduate, writer, and...

NEW YORK - The artist Richard Prince worked at Time Life in the 1970s, clipping and archiving articles for the news divisions. As the story goes, he grew fascinated with the ads that were left over, noting similarities in props, models, poses. He collected the ads and assembled collages of them before he hit on the idea of simply rephotographing them. "Richard Prince: Spiritual America," a career-spanning, 160-work retrospective at New York's Guggenheim Museum, brings us back to his creative breakthrough: 1977's "Untitled (living rooms)

The Boston Beer Co., which is best known for its Samuel Adams brand, said Tuesday that it is looking to go national with an initiative that started out by seeking to help local small businesses. In 2008, Boston Beer debuted what it calls the "Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream" program, which works with microlender Accion in looking to help small businesses with mentoring support as well as with loans that generally run in the range of $1,000 to $20,000. Boston Beer founder Jim Koch has said that his own experience persuaded him to launch the...

AS A baby boomer soon to be eligible (not to be confused with able) to retire, I have become increasingly alarmed throughout my working years, as pensions went away, my human service industry wages stagnated, and housing equity and 403(b) values plummeted. In recent years, we have detected increased chatter from the economic terrorists running our country regarding the so-called need to cut Social Security and Medicare. Health care costs and increasing gasoline prices are already soaking up what little disposable income might be available.

Carlos Slim, the telecommunications tycoon who controls Mexico's America Movil SAB, is the richest person on Earth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world's 20 wealthiest individuals. The 72-year-old's net worth fell $478.4 million in a day to $68.5 billion as of the close of markets on Friday, as U.S. moguls Bill Gates and Warren Buffett placed second and third on the list compiled by Bloomberg News. Brazil's Eike Batista, who ranks 10th, still covets the top spot after vowing a year ago that he'd become the world's wealthiest man by 2015.

Declaring the American dream under siege, President Barack Obama delivered a populist challenge Tuesday night to shrink the gap between rich and poor, promising to tax the wealthy more and help jobless Americans get work and hang onto their homes. Seeking re-election and needing results, the president invited Republicans to join him but warned, "I intend to fight. " In an emphatic State of the Union address, Obama said ensuring a fair shot for all Americans is "the defining issue of our time.

RE "FED'S housing ideas won't fix market" (Op-ed, Jan. 13): Here's the storyline that's developed with respect to real estate and its role in the recession: During the recent drop in real estate values, a significant percentage of home buyers were not able to make their mortgage payments and were foreclosed upon. This was because they were unqualified, bankers were greedy and made risky loans, and the securitization of mortgages was not regulated enough and went haywire. Yet in fact, the vast majority of home buyers, including those of low and moderate...

A YEAR ago this week, I became an American. The ceremony took place a couple of days after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Faneuil Hall, where more than 400 of us had assembled to take the oath of citizenship. Looking around, I realized I hadn't done this properly. Most people had installed family and friends in the balcony with cameras, ready to record the moment and celebrate afterwards. I'd come alone, hoping it would be over in time for me to pick up my son from school. "We may all have come on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now," said the presiding judge, quoting...

Sure, times are tough. The economy is bad, Washington seems paralyzed, and there's a steady drumbeat of bad news from Afghanistan. Jimmy Tingle sees all that and still thinks we can live the American dream. "Every single generation has had challenges," Tingle said. "How was the job market for the Pilgrims?" We can't get bummed out, the Cambridge comedian insists. We have to remember "the big picture of what America is and our own potential as people. Regardless of what's happening in the economy or with politics, we can't let it hold us back as individuals.

Declaring the American dream under siege, President Barack Obama delivered a populist challenge Tuesday night to shrink the gap between rich and poor, promising to tax the wealthy more and help jobless Americans get work and hang onto their homes. Seeking re-election and needing results, the president invited Republicans to join him but warned, "I intend to fight. " In an emphatic State of the Union address, Obama said ensuring a fair shot for all Americans is "the defining issue of our time.

Two self-described Disney "fanatics" have purchased a house in Utah modeled after the colorful home featured in the animated movie "Up. " Discovering the house in the Salt Lake City suburb of Herriman, Utah, was a dream come true for Clinton and Lynette Hamblin of Petaluma, Calif. The couple had been looking for a house with some of the same flourishes as the one in the movie, such as a multi-colored exterior or a blue kitchen with retro appliances. They initially looked in California until they saw news reports about the house in Utah that included every possible detail from...

"IT'S EASY to point fingers," writes John E. Sununu ("Democrats couldn't get real on tax reform," Op-ed, Nov. 21). He should know. He spent his op-ed pointing his finger - surprise - at the Democrats. If the professional political class wants to understand the indelicate rage of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, this kind of article is Exhibit A. While most of us suffer from our national political gridlock, Sununu and others on both sides of the aisle make a good living as consultants, public speakers, campaign advisers, and so on. They are experts at the blame game, refusing to take a...