9 Aug, 2022
Some time ago, several millennia in fact, a wise man known as Confucius admonished the Chinese people to "call things by their proper names" in order to better perceive and grapple with reality, and to avoid disorder.
8 Aug, 2022
The issue of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine highlights the decades-long reluctance of today’s major military powers to support the International Criminal Court.
7 Aug, 2022
Back in 1967 people were electrified by “The Graduate,” especially the scene of 40+ Anne Bancroft seducing 21-year old Dustin Hoffman. But there was another iconic moment, when one of his parents’ friends definitively pronounces one word to Hoffman that would assure his future business success: “plastics.”
6 Aug, 2022
“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples.”
5 Aug, 2022
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed 77 years ago this week. The two bombs the United States dropped on those cities killed some 200,000 human beings, most of whom were civilians.
3 Aug, 2022
Nancy Pelosi’s stopover in Taiwan may be brave or foolhardy, but the Chinese reaction so far (lots of live-fire weapons drills close to the island nation, along with acts of cyber-sabotage) suggests how threatened the government of the Peoples’ Republic of China feels.
2 Aug, 2022
A gross injustice against young immigrants is slowly working its way through the courts. It centers upon a federal judge’s ruling last year that the DACA Program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was “unlawful,” a ruling that puts in doubt a program that has given tens of thousands of young people brought here as children a temporary, renewable reprieve from deportation...
1 Aug, 2022
You may find this shocking, but a little over a decade ago I spent a weekend learning how to shoot a handgun — under the auspices of the NRA. I wound up earning myself an NRA “personal protection in the home” certificate.
Events this summer have unambiguously demonstrated that, to much of the nation, the hard right majority on the Supreme Court of the United States stands for injustice, while the “just-the-facts, ma’am” US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the Capitol stands for justice.
30 Jul, 2022
The 14-year-old girl fumes at the dinner table. She got a D in math on her report card and notice of that was sent directly to her mother's phone.
House Leader Nancy Pelosi seems intent on visiting Taiwan. That might not seem like a big deal to Americans, but these are dangerous times in US-China relations. That makes a Taiwan trip very risky. Here’s why:
If you depart from an “us vs. them” philosophy of life, your first confrontation is likely to be with the cynics.
27 Jul, 2022
“It didn’t matter if it was coming from the left or the right, you should condemn violence 100 percent of the time.” I sat upright when former Deputy Press Secretary Sara Matthews said this during the July 21 January 6th committee hearing.
25 Jul, 2022
At a time of children with popsicle-covered faces running around and summer music festivals-- many are celebrating the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond celebrations though, parents of children under 5 scramble to pediatrician offices while immunocompromised folks try to navigate daily life with deadly risks. Healthcare workers face long-term burnout and abuse from patients, long past praise as heroes and applause at the turn of shifts.
23 Jul, 2022
President Biden has now completed his first visit to the Middle East. The trip was billed as an opportunity to reset relations, especially with Saudi Arabia, promote respect for human rights, and reaffirm traditional US policy on Israel and the Palestine question.
