Are we looking the gift horse of American Democracy in the mouth? As much as I try to pretend that our Democracy (capital D intended) is not in jeopardy, the harder it is to ignore clear signs that the majority of the people in one of our two dominant political parties claim allegiance to a powerful cult of personality that won’t go away. Truth and facts no longer mean anything in what I feel is a dangerous [...] READ MORE
The perceptions of good and evil can be reversed if we can rationalize a cause as moral and righteous. We’ve had it pretty good in this country. We’ve never had a military coup or any usurping of executive functions by the legislature or the military. There was that unfortunate storming of the capitol in a misguided attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but we can write that off a lesson learned. It’s just that we all [...] READ MORE
Some chapters in American history may be difficult to process, but they should be there for us to learn. It was more than a year ago when one of my blogs posted on Facebook received an ominous “blacklisted” tag. It was only a couple of weeks after the insurgence at the Capitol. The word “fascism” was in the blog’s heading, and I thought maybe it was flagged for proliferating an unproven conspiracy or fueling anti-government sentiments. It [...] READ MORE
Sleeping through the present while dreaming of a sitcom-portrayed and idealized past. Several Februarys ago, during our return drive on what has become an annual winter excursion to Florida, we were intrigued by signage along I-77 North hawking the Andy Griffith Museum in Mount Airy, NC. We were briefly tempted to check it out. It wasn’t so much our interest in Griffith himself, star of a pair of major television hits over the years — Matlock (1986-1995) [...] READ MORE
Contemplating the War on Terror and remembering our last brief display of national unity twenty years ago. I suppose I wrote my 9/11 commentary a year ago when I shared remembrances of my son’s escape from the soon-to-collapse South Tower on the morning of September 11, 2001. It was a happy ending for both Jeremy and us, but after 20 years he is still trying to come to terms with why fate put him there and, secondly, [...] READ MORE
Don’t let prehistoric opinions define who you are today. I inadvertently took last week off. I have been engrossed in a book project and on Thursday of last week realized that I hadn’t written my weekly blog, which I have always posted on Wednesdays. Nobody noticed so I guess we all (make that all three of us) needed a week off. We have lost the opportunity to be spontaneous and misinformed, to learn and grow, to become [...] READ MORE
Everyone seems to have an opinion, but we all can’t be right. The only sin we never forgive is a difference of opinion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson I prefer not to respond to comments about my blog on Facebook, favorable or otherwise, because I’ve made my point and others can say what they want. Maybe we’ll all learn something. Getting caught up in a debate with someone who seems to be living in an alternate universe is [...] READ MORE
Cautionary warnings about extremism continue to resonate as years fly by. —One of the advantages of having written hundreds of weekly newspaper columns over a span of 40 years for two different newspapers is an archives of your personal views over time. Some age well and some don’t. Some are serious and some are silly, and few were completed without at least one attempt at humor. The following was written as a newspaper column more than five [...] READ MORE
Wailing in the White House won’t help bring us together. I must confess I resisted following the blow-by-blow coverage of the presidential election, which required much of last week to project a winner. My attitude was just let me know when it is all over but the shouting. Well, the election part is over, anyway. As usual the shouting, better described as wailing, comes from a president who fears becoming something he detests above all things— a [...] READ MORE
Hatred of free blacks has kept white supremacy alive for 155 Years. There is no question that the history most of us were taught in school, including the generations that have followed mine, offered a rosier narrative of slavery than it deserved. Centuries of enslavement, mostly imposed on Africans abducted from their villages and families, converted an estimated 3.6 million men, women and children into property— more than half of them propping up a fairy tale plantation [...] READ MORE
