Plop, plop, no fizz! Here’s what you do. You walk up to somebody and ask, “Whatever happened to the Doublemint Twins?” If the response is, “The who?” you know you are significantly older than the other person or the latter has the memory of a sponge. And it doesn’t have to be the Doublemint Twins. You could also ask about Speedy Alka-Seltzer or Bucky Beaver. Bucky Beaver? You say you’re old too, and that name doesn’t ring [...] READ MORE
Digging up the dirt on the latest judicial candidate. We’ve all been told that judges are supposed to be nonpartisan and objective in their decisions, basing their opinions on legal precedent (a.k.a. applicable law) as it currently exists. That applies to the U.S. Supreme Court down to the lower courts, including the county Court of Common Pleas and the lowest rung of the Pennsylvania ladder, Magisterial District Judges, numbering four in my mostly rural county and into [...] 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
Digging up the past helps us understand who we are as a nation. I fear patriotism is presented as a false choice. It seems that for many, to be patriotic is to remember and celebrate only our nation’s triumphs. To choose otherwise, to choose to remember our failings, is thus somehow anti-American. — Ken Burns Ken Burns, in the introductory quote, was referring to the only National Historic Site in the United States with the word “massacre” [...] 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
Fat Albert: No body shaming, but what can you say? “Hey, hey, hey!” Banning a bunch of Dr. Seuss books due to derogatory Asian and African-American depictions has people all upset, especially certain U.S. Senators who are otherwise quite tolerant of attempted government overthrow and reticent in affirming that Black Lives Matter. But I can relate to some of those concerns when it comes to this cancel-culture backlash. It’s a complex subject to tackle, taking aim at [...] READ MORE
It takes vigilance for a democracy to detect seeds of sedition and treason. So how did we get here? How did we in America, the land of opportunity, get so screwed up about who’s right and who’s wrong after following a Pied Piper to the edge of a metaphorical river where some have already drowned? Others wait on the shore, testing the water, and vacillating. “Should we stay or should we go?” The Piper’s followers have already [...] READ MORE
Hatred of any person, especially an entire race, can poison an otherwise healthy mind. Any dialogue about racism is good. My last blog wasn’t specifically about the president, but my references to him were primarily about his failure during this crazy campaign season to stand up against hate groups and white supremacist violence. For the record, my fact-checking confirms three distinct times he did behave presidentially in the aftermaths of two violent events that resulted in the [...] 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
History teaches us that racial harmony extends beyond racial tolerance. It’s not that I’m a big fan of “Gone with the Wind,” which was, in my opinion, a chick flick before that expression became part of the national vocabulary. The movie came out in 1939, many years before some started inappropriately referring to women as chicks and movies as flicks. A quick Googling revealed the term “chick flick” first appeared in print in 1988. It didn’t take [...] READ MORE
