Trump world is giving us the "madman theory of foreign policy" and a reign of terror domestically. Around the world, he is fashioning himself as unpredictable and irrational, which comes naturally to him and doesn't have to be "fashioned." Just ask Greenlanders and Panamanians, fearful that he said he'd use force if necessary to take …
Category: Uncategorized
In Trump Week Two, this piece of fiction is a gift
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson is a relatively short, exquisitely written novel (published five years ago) about two Black families, divided by economic status, whose lives become joined when their children conceive a baby. Iris, 16, insists on giving birth to Melody, without any understanding of or commitment to being a mom. Her …
Continue reading In Trump Week Two, this piece of fiction is a gift
Preparing for the New Dystopian Reality?
January 20, 2025. The sun is shining, but it gives no warmth. The air is frigid, and we’re told that it’s going to be getting much colder. Irrespective of changing seasons, things might be consistently unpleasant for the next 1461 days. Donald Trump today took the oath of office to become the 47th president of …
A novel embedded in history, enriched by poetry
There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak is a large book delicately woven by a metaphor: drop of water falls into the river, whose particles are borne to the sky and fall again to the earth as rain, only to repeat itself. The image speaks to continuing cycles of human experience, starting at …
Continue reading A novel embedded in history, enriched by poetry
Historical fiction that expands our minds and feeds our senses
This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud is a fictional drama based on the author’s own multi-generational family, covering seven decades of family history and moving from Salonica in Greece, to French (colonial) Algeria to France, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, Australia and the United States. Each chapter is told from the perspective of another family member, …
Continue reading Historical fiction that expands our minds and feeds our senses
Jimmy Carter went out as he came in
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 …
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 …
Continue reading Frank Bellotti: a street fighter with a liberal heart
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, …
Continue reading 16th C. England: leaders worse than ours today
Marjorie Arons-Barron 