Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is a fascinating story about a highly regarded Israeli neurosurgeon, Eitan Green, transferred from Tel Aviv to Beersheba because of hospital politics. Driving his SUV at high speed in the desert late one night, he hits an Eritrean immigrant walking by the side of the road, causing fatal head injuries. …
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Climate change a personal issue
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 …
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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2024 Presidential race a high-stakes groundhog day?
Newsflash! Joe Biden is a candidate for reelection. It's hard not to be a little dispirited by the prospects of a replay of the 2020 election. As many as two thirds of both major parties are distinctly unenthusiastic about the expected nominees. But, while we may yearn for some shiny new thing, the chances of …
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She’s ba-ack!
Three months ago, for the first time in 13 years, I took temporary leave of my blog to deal with the fall-out (unfortunate term in this context) of having tripped and broken what turned out to be seven ribs, with some complications. Doctors said I would take at least three months to heal, and I …
Taking a break – or six
( Getty Images) After three years of not being on an airplane due to COVID concerns, we decided to take a winter break. I should have chosen my words more carefully. Friends ask me how was my trip to Florida. A better question would be about my trip in Florida. It wasn't pretty. Out walking …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 