"To speak out fairly and honestly, though mercy may appear more amiable in a magistrate, severity is a more wholesome virtue," wrote the great 18th-century English jurist and author of Tom Jones. He has much to teach Americans about criminal justice in the 21st-century. 

The unchallenged premise that lies at the heart of unaffordable housing in America is that there is no room for more suburbs. That detached homes in new suburbs are unhealthy for people and the planet. It simply isn't true.

An alliance of special interests and government bureaucracies has acquired money and power by presiding over a problem that has only gotten worse, year after year. The worse the problem has gotten, the more money and power they have acquired. Creative solutions exist, and only await a critical mass of networked citizens and conscientious policymakers to insist on change.