So, the consoler-in-chief has visited Las Vegas in the wake of a mass slaughter at a concert there, and, unlike yesterday's shameful performance in Puerto Rico, he stayed on script. He called the gunman "sick and demented, " but he refused to be drawn into discussing solutions to the mass killings. Don't look to Donald …
Category: Culture
Slouching to November 8th
I voted early yesterday. Ten minutes before the City Hall polling place was to open a line was forming. Quickly 50 or 60 people joined the line. The stream was constant. To the extent that there was conversation, it was in dribs and drabs about this exciting new opportunity to cast ballots before election day. …
Refusing to stand for the National Anthem
Some fans are burning jerseys to protest San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision to sit and not stand for the National Anthem to protest inequitable treatment of blacks in America. He wants to call attention to racial injustice and police brutality. He wants to add to the national debate. So here we are. Maybe it makes you …
Last days of summer reading, pt. 2
With Labor Day around the corner, I'm indulging in reading rather than writing. In my last blog posting, I shared some of the fiction I've read this summer. In today's blog are some non-fiction suggestions, a mixed bag. Early this summer, I plowed through Spain in Our Hearts, by Adam Hochschild, a history of the Spanish …
Ballparks, books and last days of summer
Campaign 2016 has become intolerable, even for this confirmed political junkie. I won't go into why. You know what I'm talking about. So, in the interest of sanity, it has become increasingly important to savor the baseball, books and beauties of the last days of summer. Today, the Red Sox have a tenuous hold on first …
2016 Olympics a gold medal disaster
Whatever happens in individual games over the next two weeks, this may be the most depressing Olympics since Berlin in 1936 and Munich in 1972. And it makes me happier than ever that Boston came to its senses and dropped its 2024 bid. The opening ceremony said it all. Unremitting commercials interspersed with some tape-delayed …
Pay equity issues start at the top
Stock market and share prices are near record highs. At the same time, Republicans and Democrats alike bemoan a sluggish recovery that has left too many behind. As delegates gather in Philadelphia this week, I wonder how many of the speakers will address this disconnect seriously, especially when so many there contributed to this …
Race across America
Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Lorne Ahrens. Michael Krol. Michael Smith. Brent Thompson. Patrick Zamarripa. Seven men shot and killed last week. Seven senseless deaths, all speaking in one way or another to the racism laced through relations between African-Americans and the police. We have to be blind not to see it. Stone-hearted not to feel …
UK vote sends chills down US spines
Fasten your seatbelts. The ride's going to get even bumpier. A word that few on this side of the pond had heard six months ago may portend greater troubles in the United States. Brexit, shorthand for the United Kingdom's vote to exit the European Union, drives home the anti-globalization rise of nationalism, a nativistic fear of …
Normalizing relations with Cuba: not so fast
Polls make it clear that the American public is way ahead of Congress in supporting normalization of relations and reopening trade with Cuba. But positive numbers from several polls don't mean that the normalization process will be easy or fast. That was unequivocally confirmed by Gonzalo Gallegos, Deputy Assistant for Western Affairs, at a State Department briefing Monday for 30 members …
Continue reading Normalizing relations with Cuba: not so fast
Marjorie Arons-Barron 