How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney offers what could be an eye-opening look at how to talk to “the other.” It’s about much more than when every day becomes Thanksgiving Day and seemingly reasonable people turn out to be crazy Uncle Harry. McRaney shares what he has …
Books: a fictional interlude in our non-fictional life
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein is a short, dense and intense meditation on what it means to be an outsider and a survivor. The first-person narrator speaks directly to the reader spinning the tale of how, as a child, her family had taught her to subdue her own wants and silence her own voice …
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Israel’s response to Hamas: when does enough become too much?
The October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on Israel was barbaric, gut-wrenching and a blatant violation of international law. For many, especially those whose extended families have been caught up in the terror, the attack was also deeply personal. At least 1200 Israelis were killed, many of them raped and dismembered. The much-vaunted Israeli intelligence apparatus …
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Manager to the frozen section, please!
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I have some questions in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children. If they are, indeed, children, shouldn't keeping them in freezers at some -230F or colder be a barbarous form of child abuse? Shouldn't the parents be prosecuted? Who else along …
Frigid weather, fiction to warm your spirits
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane is as effective a thriller as his previous books, once again taking a deep dive into the social and political environment in South Boston, this time in the lead-up to the 1974 school busing crisis. That event was raw, for both Blacks and Whites, but it's just the backdrop for …
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Cry the beloved city! Reflections on the Newton teachers strike
The City of Newton's shameful, illegal, and history-making 11-day teachers strike is over. Finally, Newton’s 12,000 school kids are back in class, where they belong. Those of us who have lived in Newton for a long time are heartbroken that the dispute came down to that illegal action. The turbulence and incivility, the willingness to …
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During frigid temps, some non-fiction books to warm you
Master, Slave, Husband, Wife: an epic journey from slavery to freedom by Ilyon Woo is the story of Ellen Craft, a light-skinned enslaved woman and skilled seamstress, and her husband William, also enslaved and a skilled cabinet maker, and their 1848 flight from their masters in Macon, Georgia to Philadelphia, Boston, Canada and England. Ellen …
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Will raw politics kill immigration reform?
Do we really need to arm the Statue of Liberty? It’s no secret that there is an immigration crisis in this country. Since Biden became President, more than three million migrants have crossed the border, and an estimated 1.7 million more have snuck in or overstayed their visas. The influx is now a problem for …
Healey’s State-of-the-State – a gift of optimism
Governor Maura Healey's report January 17th on the state of the Commonwealth was nearly an hour of celebration: what her new administration has accomplished, what challenges remain, how she intends to address each and every one of them. The standing O's from the full house were as stretch-and-dip a workout as at the Boston Sports …
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Reflections on my 1,000th blog
This is the 1,000th blog I have written since creating marjoriearonsbarron.com. These essays follow 20 years and several thousand editorials written and aired for WCVB-TV, Channel 5, Boston's ABC affiliate. Above my desk at the station hung a framed picture of a self-satisfied, slightly overweight pussycat with the inscription, "Everyone has a right to my opinion." Back …
