Category: Blog

Sifting through the devastating impact of a terrorist act like the recent massacre in Buffalo is, at once, an occupational exercise and an impossible task. Those who practice in some of the public occupations — journalism, education and electoral politics — are called upon to “make sense” of and explain the actions of a vicious… Continue reading The Tops Attack: where do we hide?

In a column for the New York Times about a year ago, Salamishah Tillet wrote this: “What I deemed with my own eyes to be truth or fact would always be unequal to the power of the white gaze that dominates most aspects of American life.” There you go: the sentence I’ve been waiting for,… Continue reading The White Gaze

Two points I would amidst the cacophony of plaints and desperate screams that welcomed the “leak” of a Supreme Court decision draft of one of the Court’s most reactionary members: Samuel Alito. Nobody knows who leaked the draft and, in the end, nobody should care. This idea that the most important issue for the Court… Continue reading Choice, the Court and Citizenship

I’ve a rule: don’t write about a subject twice in a row. Makes me look obsessed. Health, political responsibilities and personal crazy stuff, however, have intervened to prevent my planned return to timely contributions to these humble pages and…well, well, well…here we are two fulls months after I wrote my last entry, which was on… Continue reading Ukraine — again!

As the Ukraine crisis, or actually the latest chapter in a virtual novel of crises in that region, comes to a new plateau, I’ve not much to say that isn’t repetitive. Vladimir Putin is an autocratic jerk. Russia is a confused, internally torn and politically pulsating mess: a reflection of the rest of the world.… Continue reading Have They No Shame!

This past week, in Portland, Oregon, as a Black Lives Matter demonstration was staging at a park, a man who reportedly lived someplace in the area attacked the organizers. He killed one woman and injured three other people. There’s not much information yet but the scant reports say some demonstrators exchanged fire with him. Sadly,… Continue reading Civil War!!??

A blog writer, among other things, returns from a hiatus forced by family and domestic circumstances beyond his control and anybody’s nightmares. And what does he find? A bunch of truck-drivers and others going nuts clogging streets and making mayhem in, of all places, Canada. The location wouldn’t be surprising if it were a demonstration… Continue reading The Warning: Truckers Up North

Know the name? Very few do. Maybe a few more know Valentina Orellana-Peralta because she’s the one everyone’s talking about. It’s all about Los Angeles police killing people. Here’s the short version. Daniel Elena Lopez was a 24 year old guy who obviously had a break-down at a Burlington Coat Store store in the North… Continue reading The Murder of Daniel Elena Lopez

This week, in a back and forth with NPR’s Mara Liasson, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made a startling revelation. Here’s the verbatim on the exchange: Liasson: There are still a lot of countries like Germany and the UK and South Korea that basically have massive testing free of charge or for a nominal… Continue reading What did Jen just reveal?

Under U.S. law, the answer is “not fully” and last week the Supreme Court met to discuss a case in which a number of the justices showed they want to repeal the protection of women’s right to choice which is a recognition of a woman’s humanity. Even those of us who think the Supreme Court’s… Continue reading Are Women Human?