It was a scorcher of a day in the summer of 1975, more than a year before the presidential election to determine whether Jerry Ford could withstand public contempt for his decision to pardon Richard Nixon and win a four-year term on his own. Foot traffic in Concord, New Hampshire was subdued under the blazing …
Month: December 2024
Good news is no news at all
Polls show that two thirds of Americans are mentally exhausted and taking a break from a steady diet of news consumption. Count me among them, at least aspirationally. Since the election, mainstream newspapers, cable and network news have bled readers and viewers, most significantly at CNN and MSNBC. I, too, have simply overdosed on national …
Congress averts government shutdown
Congratulations to our do-little 118th Congress, which, after weeks of inactivity and chaos, has finally passed funding to keep the U.S. government open until March. It's no surprise that only 21 percent of the American people approve of its performance. It was 19 percent in September. I'm surprised its favorability rating is that high! The …
Frank Bellotti: a street fighter with a liberal heart
Former Massachusetts Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti is dead at 101. One of my first interviews with him, shown to the left, with my six-year-old son Daniel Arons looking on, was in 1973 at a local political picnic when he was launching a campaign for Attorney General. Between 1958 and 1990, he ran for office …
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16th C. England: leaders worse than ours today
Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage That Shook Europe by historians John Guy and Julia Fox (husband and wife team)is a deeply researched tome larded with the tumultuous history of the reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I of France, and Charles V Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Hapsburg Empire, …
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New painting gladdens 19th c. wartime Paris
Paris in Ruins: Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism by Sebastian Smee is a well-researched account of France from the reign of Napoleon III through the end of his empire, the Franco-Prussian War he had provoked, the radical socialist “Commune” that followed, and, finally, the establishment of a calmer republic that lasted into the …
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Hunter Biden pardon stains President Biden’s legacy
Sorry, folks, but I just don't buy the argument that it was fine for Joe Biden to have pardoned son Hunter not just for the tax evasion and gun charges for which he was convicted but for any other federal crime he may have done between 2014 and 2024. There has not been such a …
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An absorbing novel as cold weather sets in
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is a noteworthy piece of fiction. If you liked Rooney’s Normal People, you’ll enjoy being drawn into this newest book. The narrative line is: two brothers, both grieving the recent death of their father, are alienated from each other and, we learn, from themselves. Peter, age 32, is a barrister known …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 