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
The birth of hip hop, and how it grew and grew and grew
This week marks the 50th anniversary of hip hop music, and many platforms, including National Public Radio and the New York Times, are celebrating the phenomenon. For those of us immersed in or more comfortable with Beethoven, the Beatles, Mahalia Jackson or Peter, Paul and Mary, the wonderment should not be underestimated. In fact, I …
Continue reading The birth of hip hop, and how it grew and grew and grew
Assigned reading for civics class: Trump Indictment
Trump and his acolytes are whining across media platforms that Tuesday's grand jury indictment of Donald Trump is a violation of his First Amendment rights. The villains, they complain, are the weaponization of the Department of Justice and the criminalization of ordinary political speech. Nothing could be further from the truth. Before anyone joins the …
Continue reading Assigned reading for civics class: Trump Indictment
Summer reading a delicious pleasure
Reading books year-round is life-enhancing, but reading in summertime seems especially to be savored. Here are some non-fiction selections. The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson will fascinate anyone intrigued by the immigrant experience, Irish roots, old-time urban ward bosses and Boston politics in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. …
Summer sweetness
There's nothing like the distractions of summer to make one forget (almost) the news. And, however guilty I may feel about not persevering as the "eat your spinach" part of your weekly communications, I have no intention of writing about him who shall not be named.....at least not today......or about any of the other depressing …
What hath the Supreme Court wrought?
On this 247th celebration of our country's birth, any American who believes in the progress of civilization must be rattling in the throes of PTSD. Over the last two years, the Supreme Court has managed to wipe out half a century of gains in achieving several foundational promises of our Constitution. We are shocked and …
How we celebrate July 4th
Picnics, parades, fireworks, and concerts - all wonderfully traditional ways to celebrate the birth of our country and the values embraced in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. In an article published in today's highly respected Commonwealth Magazine, James H. Barron (name ring a bell?) argues that one particular aspect to July 4th celebrations …
SCOTUS decision: a big whew!
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against GOP legislators in North Carolina, who had claimed that they should have unreviewable powers to set the rules for their state's federal elections. The six-to-three decision (with Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissenting) affirms our fundamental principle of checks and balances. This decision has implications far beyond …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 