Hiding out from election coverage isn't working all that well for me. Half my recent blogs have been non-political book reviews, but that hasn't diluted the tension leading up to November 5th. Now I feel compelled to express my outrage and disappointment at how once-leading American newspapers have been too fearful of Donald Trump to …
Continue reading Bezos’ business interests trump WaPo journalism
The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself by senior BBC correspondent Nick Bryant is a frigid splash of icy water on the notion of American exceptionalism. It may help us to understand Donald Trump's enduring, if frightening appeal to a large swathe of Americans voters. Australian journalist Bryant spent more than a decade living …
Continue reading Two books of non-fiction for different audiences
Donald Trump may claim he's immune to prosecution for multiple crimes to overturn the 2020 election results, but you can read the Government's just-released response to federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan showing why he acted as a private citizen and must be held accountable. Trump's trial should have started last spring but was upended …
Continue reading New damning evidence against private citizen Trump
Tuesday night's debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President (and convicted felon) Donald Trump put a smile on the face of anyone who has ever felt degraded or dismissed as weak, inconsequential or otherwise put down by a bully. Harris was "presidential." Not only did she stand up to Trump verbally, but she …
Kamala Harris may have started her speech Thursday night as the little girl inspired by her mother to be anything she wanted to be, urged on by mommy to "do something" to challenge injustice, but the Democratic nominee ended her speech in warrior mode. No frills or sequins or even summer colors for her. Her …
I have covered Republican and Democratic national conventions from New York to Kansas City, but I’ve never seen a first night as electric as that which I viewed on television last evening. I did not take notes, so the following are the impressions that “have legs.” Especially moving were the personal accounts of men …
I was happier than I thought I'd be yesterday morning when Kamala Harris announced her selection of Tim Walz as her running mate. That quiet sense of elation rose to celebration last evening with their first joint appearance at an exuberant rally in Philadelphia. Several weeks of compare and contrast, sorting out the pros and …
American Mother by Collum McCann is an as-told-to account by Diane Foley of the 2014 death of her son, freelance American journalist James W. Foley. McCann, the author of Apeirogon and Let the Great World Spin, is a master storyteller, tells the first and last chapters of this riveting book in the third person, but …
Continue reading Fanatics and vigilantes: two books with red flags
Our phone has been ringing off the hook; our electronic mailboxes flooded. Friends, even staunch supporters of Joe Biden, have come to accept the idea that he is not well enough to serve another term. Worse, that he didn't have the stamina even to win a second term. The stakes could not be higher. Now, …
Four days in the halcyon setting of the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox were not enough to insulate us from the political sturm und drang that erupted this past weekend. I joined others in shock and horror at the shooting of Donald Trump, saddened that the violence following upon incendiary political rhetoric may have contributed …
Continue reading Should the Democrats give up? Absolutely not!
Marjorie Arons-Barron 