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The Last Closed Sunday

The World Cup final fell on a Sunday this year. The largest crowd of the summer poured out of MetLife Stadium, and the stores at American Dream were open and selling. Ten miles north, the biggest mall in New Jersey was dark. Westfield Garden State Plaza closes every Sunday. Paramus Park closes. The Bergen Town Center closes. Nearly every other retailer in Bergen County closes, because a statute older than any of the malls says clothing, furniture, appliances, lumber, and home furnishings may not change hands on the first day of the week. Bergen County likes it that way. The voters have said so twice, both times by landslide. The voters never got a say over the ground under American Dream. That is where the case lives.

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And Jeremiah Wept

The idea of “and Jeremiah Wept” is both a fascination and a complication. If we weep for others, are we weak, or empathetic? Framing matters. A hundred years ago, openly weeping for a friend may have been seen as inappropriate, but today, a public weeping may be assigned as a sign of strength of character in the bleeding heart of dismay.

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The Economic Fraud of the American Dream

The quintessential “American Dream” is one of the most pervasive and iconic themes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries — our mentors push us toward it; the media glamorizes it; poor Jay Gatsby died trying to achieve it. However, as young graduates across the nation return to their parents’ homes with diplomas in one hopeful hand, the goal of proud, self-governed homeownership seems to slip further and further away.

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The American Dream: Myth or Reality?

by María L. Trigos-Gilbert

Before I explain what the American Dream is, it’s imperative to discuss the meaning of one’s dream. So let’s ask some fundamental questions at hand. What’s a dream? Where do we conceive our dreams? Where does a dream end? How does a dream get materialized? What happens after it is materialized? A dream is hope’s image. You hope what you don’t have until you get it. Then your hope is fulfilled. A dream is conceived in one’s mind. We start imagining. In your mind everything is just right, all what you want, when you want it, and with whom you want it. If those aspects of your dream come true, then you may shout BINGO. That’s when your dream ends. By then, you are supposed to be satisfied.

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