When was the last time that mainstream media paid this much attention to black-on-black violence? For much of the past week, the Academy Awards historic incident has been the top story in broadcast and print media. The picture is indelible: Oscar-winning Will Smith leaving his seat, marching onstage and slapping comedian emcee Chris Rock hard …
Biden’s nine-word unforced error
"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" King Henry II is said to have muttered out loud, grumbling about Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry wasn't ordering anyone to whack the troublesome Becket, but four knights who overheard what they assumed to be the King's wish, rode off to Canterbury and killed …
Passing the Freedom to Vote legislation
The hypocrisy of Senate Republicans is breathtaking. They give standing ovations to Volodymyr Zelenskyy's heroic battle for democracy in Ukraine, they line up to take selfies with Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova in the Capitol, they're moved to tears by videos of courageous citizens fighting for their country, and they fight like hell to diminish democracy …
Biden State-of-the-Union speech a mixed bag
Joe Biden was elected President for many reasons, among them simply that he wasn't Donald Trump. Compared to his predecessor, Biden was a decent, honest, homespun guy with a strong background in foreign relations, a belief in America's global leadership in defense of democratic principles, and a commitment to international alliances among nations with largely …
Continue reading Biden State-of-the-Union speech a mixed bag
Biden on right track versus Putin
First, an apology to Mitt Romney. Prior to the 2012 election, then-Presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared that Russia was our biggest geopolitical threat. During the campaign, Barack Obama blasted him for saying Russia rather than Al Qaeda. Obama mocked Romney for being mired in a Cold War mentality. Many of us chuckled dismissively along with …
Suspending Whoopi is counter-productive
Whoopi Goldberg is in hot water again, this time for insisting on ABC’s The View that the Holocaust was not about race but “about man’s inhumanity to man.” She doubled down the next night on Stephen Colbert, reducing the Holocaust to a conflict between white folks, telling him that, if a Klan member were chasing her and a Jewish …
More books to curl up with in wintertime – pt. 2, fiction
The Promise by Damon Galgut won the 2021 Booker Prize. A family saga set in South Africa, it focuses on the Swart family from 1986 to 2018, mirroring the country’s emergence from apartheid to the uncertain promise of the present. It is first and foremost a family saga, set against the backdrop of historical events. …
Continue reading More books to curl up with in wintertime – pt. 2, fiction
Books to curl up with in wintertime – pt. 1, non-fiction
The snow is hard and reaches almost to the window sill. The temperature is below freezing. The sky is gray. What better escape than settling in with a good book? Today, I have some non-fiction suggestions. Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother’s Letter to her Son by Homeira Qaderi, is a deeply moving memoir …
Continue reading Books to curl up with in wintertime – pt. 1, non-fiction
Is the Corner Office Healey’s to lose?
Nearly eight years ago, I sat at a small table at a Peet's Coffee shop across from a pretty, pert, smart and saucy woman, the former head of the state Attorney General's Civil Rights Division and chief of its Business and Labor Bureau. A former Hale & Dorr attorney, her greatest satisfaction, she said, came …
COVID response lags, again and again
Remember Dr. Li Wenliang, the Wuhan whistleblowing eye doctor whose warnings to medical colleagues about the not-yet-identified Covid virus were dismissed by Chinese authorities as "false comments" and rumors? In January 2020 my info-holic husband told me about Dr. Li and predicted this could be the start of a dangerous pandemic. I remember our discussions …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 