Global warming is no longer an abstract theory. Forget about the hockey-stick-shaped graph correlating the rapid rise in temperature with the fossil fuel-based increase in carbon emission in recent years. The data have real-life implications for every single one of us, and we all need to see it that way. That was the dire message …
Month: May 2023
Rachael Rollins mucks up more than her promising career
Rachael Rollins seemed to have such promise. She was a gutsy woman, highly articulate in a no-nonsense way. Willing to stand up to hardened criminals. Eager to challenge a cookie-cutter system of justice with an ingrained preference for incarceration for low-level crimes when diversion and other alternative punishments could work even better. The rate of …
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Books for late spring – pt. 2, fiction
Painfully recovering from seven broken ribs wasn't all bad. It enabled a ton of reading. The following represents a few of the books with which I busied myself. More will be posted soon. A Burning by Megha Majumdar is a powerful first novel about three individuals in contemporary India trying to claw their way into …
Clarence Thomas helps the Supreme Court soil itself
I remember when the U. S. Supreme Court was held in high esteem.Today less than a third of Americans polled view SCOTUS even somewhat favorably. Justice Clarence Thomas is a poster boy for why that is so. With a blind eye to propriety, Thomas has accepted millions of dollars worth of luxury vacations from Harlan …
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Comity and caring still found at the community level
Toxic politics, anti-democratic nativism, uncivil behavior and willful stupidity - all dominate our sense of life in the United States today. But every once in a while, something happens that renews one's faith in the human condition. One example was Saturday's ribbon-cutting at a new park in Newton called Waban Common. For as long as …
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Books for early spring, pt. 1 – non-fiction
Lots of time for reading when you're waiting for broken bones to heal! Fiction to follow. After the Last Border:Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau tells the often-checkered history of American treatment of refugees, the lofty national identity promised by Emma Lazarus’ poem on the Statue of Liberty and …
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Marjorie Arons-Barron 