One of the pleasures of writing is you often surprise yourself. Poets and fiction writers try to get out of the way to allow the work to go where it wants to go; non-fiction writers, like journalists, do due diligence with research on the stories they write. …
In 1978, New York City became the first major U.S. city to put a “pooper-scooper” law in effect. The health ordinance (No. 161.03) reads:
A person who owns, possesses or controls a dog, cat or other animal shall not permit the animal to commit a nuisance on a sidewalk of…
One evening this past spring, we played our grandson, Leo, then two and a half, a few Beatles songs as he finished up his dinner with some fruit.
My wife, Jyll, and I (a k a Grammy and Grandpa) asked him if he recognized certain songs — “Hey Jude,” “All…
I’m still thinking about the late Sen. John McCain.
You know, the man who was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967, badly injured, and then tortured on and off for more than 5 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, so badly at times that he considered…
Words matter; poetry has power. It’s not for nothing that authoritarians first go after the intellectuals, the journalists, the poets.
Consider these well-wrought statements:
All men are created equal.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Black lives matter.
…
In the first nation where government and religion were explicitly made separate — according to journalist and historian Garry Wills, the true genius of our founding, the one unique thing — we find ourselves with a Supreme Court with essentially seven Catholics, of whom five are political conservatives: Chief Justice…
Everything causes a fit, all is an outrage. Throughout the pandemic, people have refused to wear masks, to social distance, to get vaccinated — going so far as to verbally and even physically attack employees at groceries, stores, shops, restaurants, and on planes who have dared ask them to wear…
As the nation watches, many seemingly dumbfounded, the Delta variant of the coronavirus has filled hospitals again, often to the levels seen at the height of the pandemic back in February — depending, stupidly, on the politics of your local and state officials.
It’s time to sue Fox News, the…
Recently, the New York Times ran a terrific video piece showing how people around the globe respond when confronted with details of the U.S. healthcare system. The reactions — from citizens of Canada, Germany, Japan, Finland, Sweden, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom — to how we manage health care…
As many Americans tuned in to see news about the meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, no doubt a frightening percentage of those viewers were pulling for Vlad, their favorite strongman.
Who can forget the comparisons made by Republicans during the Obama presidency of our…
