My husband and I are no longer COVID virgins. A two-week bout with COVID, from which we're just emerging, left me feeling disinclined to write but very much inclined to seek comfort in reading. Fiction was the best of all because it distracted me from anxieties about two of our grandchildren studying at different schools …
House mess Democrats’ fault? Give me a break!
In a recent surreal interview, ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy blamed the Democrats for the chaos in the House of Representatives. (He wasn't the only GOP official trying to sell that bill of goods.) The public isn't buying it. Let's be clear. McCarthy lost his Speakership because his transactional style of acquiring and maintaining power made …
Continue reading House mess Democrats’ fault? Give me a break!
Confronting crises at home and abroad
Did W. B. Yeats have it right? "Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." Such are one's fears today. The United States government is a two-legged stool. Israel is at war, and I haven't been able to reach either of my two …
Auto workers deserve more, not just in money
It started with three sites. Now there are three dozen more places where auto workers have gone on strike, seeking a better contract. They follow by months the many writers and actors striking the entertainment industry for similar reasons. Changing technologies are putting all their jobs and futures at risk. Meanwhile, workers see the executives …
Continue reading Auto workers deserve more, not just in money
Call it what it is: forced pregnancy
Facing 2024 elections, GOP strategists have come to understand the widespread anger spurred by their opposition to letting women control their own bodies. The issue is galvanizing voters, so Republicans want to seek a new name for the pro-life movement. Democrats, if they are wise, won't let them get away with it. A rose by …
Reading for summer’s waning days
Yes, it's past Labor Day, but it's still summer weather. And, while the calendar is getting more cluttered, it's still easy to cling to the image of long walks in the sunshine, leisurely reading and cold soups for dinner. Here are five works of fiction that will give also you pleasure. Tom Lake by Ann …
GOP debate: the elephant was in the room and outside too
He wasn't there in person, but Donald Trump was the big winner at the GOP's 2024 primary debate. In a display of cowardice and moral corruption, six of the eight candidates said that they would vote for Trump even if the former President were convicted of the crimes for which he has been charged. Just …
Continue reading GOP debate: the elephant was in the room and outside too
Some light reading before Labor Day
Going Back to T-Town: The Ernie Fields Territory Big Band by Boston journalist Carmen Fields is a memoir of her father, trombonist, pianist, music arranger and band leader of the Ernie Fields Big Band. The saga covers many of the swing bands and jazz groups that enlivened the American music scene in the middle of …
Netanyahu – the new face of authoritarianism
I met Benjamin Netanyahu some 40 years ago at a small dinner at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. I saw him again at a larger event, an impassioned speech on terrorism. It was just after he founded an anti-terrorism institute named for his brother, killed in Operation Antebbe. He was handsome, suave, articulate and charismatic. …
Continue reading Netanyahu – the new face of authoritarianism
Autobiography and memoir for intimate summer reading
The Nazi’s Granddaughter: How I Discovered My Grandfather was a War Criminal by Sylvia Foti was the fulfillment of a pledge Foti made to her dying mother to write a memoir of the author’s highly esteemed grandfather, Lithuanian general and national hero Jonas Noreika. Foti grew up in the Lithuanian community of Chicago, sustained by …
Continue reading Autobiography and memoir for intimate summer reading
Marjorie Arons-Barron 