It wasn’t just Buffalo’s NFL Wild Card loss yesterday that got me thinking about long-suffering Bills fan Tim Russert, who set the gold standard for a tough but fair Sunday news show interviewer. When Chuck Todd eventually became his successor on Meet the Press, I was heartened. For years, Todd had been a data-driven analyst …
Continue reading Missing Tim Russert; Chuck Todd disappoints
2020 vision gives us clarity to see the world around us. 2020 hindsight is a way of understanding where we got it wrong in the past. Today, my New Year's gift to you is a list of headlines I hope to see in 2020. Some are the triumph of hope over experience. Some are aspirational …
Yesterday's message? It was a sad day for the country but a good day for Constitutional democracy. The Democrats greeted the approval of two Articles of Impeachment with the solemnity and gravity the event warranted. Donald J. Trump will be forever branded as one of three United States Presidents to be impeached, indicted for abuse …
Continue reading House work continues despite impeachment process
After an expected vote for impeachment in the House of Representatives, the fate of Donald Trump will move to the U.S. Senate, where the prospects for the triumph of Constitutional values are bleak and where GOP stalwarts like Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have already violated their oaths of impartial …
Continue reading U.S. Senate: Profiles in Courage or Cowardice?
Sometime in the next 24 to 72 hours, Time Magazine will be announcing its Person Of The Year. One of the early favorites at Ladbrokes online betting was Greta Thunberg, the eloquent Swedish climate change activist. She is clearly deserving, and the award could heighten focus on the looming existential crisis, but the bookies, if …
Continue reading Nancy Pelosi for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. The author of The Underground Railroad has done it again, this time with a story of a prison-like reform school in Florida. Worse-than-Dickensian abuse occurred throughout this narrative, based on the real-life revelation five years ago about the Dozier School for Boys in the Florida panhandle town of Marianna. …
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout. If you enjoyed Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge , you will love reading Olive, Again, the sequel. Oh, to be able to write like Elizabeth Strout! Olive is sui generis……..except I find in myself an occasional alarming similarity to some of her traits. There’s still her craggy, occasionally harsh humor, …
The hammering from daily political news has kept me away from devouring my normal quota of books on contemporary politics. If you too are on overload, here are some non-fiction alternatives I've recently enjoyed. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candace Millard, published in 2006, was loaned to me by thoughtful neighbors …
There is no better campaigner than Deval Patrick. He's charismatic, warm, visionary and inspirational. He appeals to our better sides, and has the kind of personality that really could help to heal the searing wounds of division. That he is African-American indicates his potential appeal to a constituency whose enthusiasm is essential to a Democratic …
Continue reading Deval Patrick: too little, too late or a ray of sunshine?
Donald Trump would like the world to think that the Democrats are so committed to impeaching him that the important work of the country is not being touched. But there are elected officials, including officials in high places, who are staying focused on work. At least on the House side. Hundreds of bills have passed …
Continue reading It doesn’t have to be all about impeachment
Marjorie Arons-Barron 