Getty Images Getting tired standing for hours in line waiting to vote in Georgia? Want someone to give you water or a snack? If you live in Georgia, that is now illegal. It's just one of many restrictions the Peach State Governor has just signed into law to discourage people from voting. If this omnibus …
Sunshine Week: Public Records Laws the Key to Accountability
The roadmap to robust democracy starts with access to information, even when public officials don’t want you to have it. Your right to know is enshrined in The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Both federal and state versions are a major tool for reporters, businesses, law firms and ordinary citizens seeking to understand how decisions …
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Valuing Localism in Politics and Media
Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill used to say, “All politics is local.” He might not recognize the world today, in which politics has become increasingly nationalized, and media coverage has gone the same way. Political dialogue for more than four years has been dominated by pro-Trump and anti-Trump fixations. So, too, has news media coverage …
Cuomo accusers: trust but verify
(Photo by Jeenah Moon/Getty Images) If we believe the headlines, it's time to run the hot shower to clean off the sleaze. It appears Andrew Cuomo has fallen from America’s covid-hero Governor to just another fanny-grabbing, sexually inappropriate power-stoked politician. Whether he’ll have to pay the price for it - along with his deceptively hiding …
Patience strained in all aspects of life
Never has our capacity for patience been so frighteningly tested as in the pursuit of vaccines. I have written about finally connecting and getting my first shot. (Fingers crossed for the second shot.) Examples abound of others still being thwarted, especially in Charlie Baker's Massachusetts. Consider my friend Tony. Having failed repeatedly to get an …
Ted Cruz and his flight to derision
photo Reuters Aiding and abetting an armed insurrection against the peaceful transition of government at the Capitol January 6 wasn't enough for the Covid rules-flouting, grandstanding hypocrite and perhaps most despised member of the U. S. Senate - Texas’ own Ted Cruz, a boot-licking aspirant for the Oval Office in 2024. It wasn't enough that, for …
Trump deemed guilty but not convicted
The most bipartisan impeachment in our nation's history ended up ten brave enough Republicans short of conviction. So we finished in a place that seemed certain from the outset. Still, a majority of the U.S. Senate voted to convict former President Donald J. Trump of inciting insurrection against our seat of government, the symbol of …
New intensity to Black History Month
Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com Black History Month feels different this year. It's not just because of the apparent increase in special programming on television and the expansion of relevant articles in the print media, though both of those have burgeoned. Nor is it only because of the emotional thrust of Black Lives Matter …
More comforts of fiction on winter days: 2
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is a gift. It's the story of William Shakespeare's son Hamnet, who died of the plague at the age of 11, leaving behind his twin sister, Judith, older sister Susannah and mother, Agnes Hathaway. Clearly the book's Agnes is wife Anne, and Hathaway's real-life father's will refers to Anne as Agnes. …
The comforts of fiction on winter days: 1
Cold grey days, snow and ice, long waits for vaccines, Zoom fatigue, all add up to wonderful opportunities for reading, with fiction being an especially enticing escape. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, came out in 2011, won the National Book Award for fiction. The narrator, Esch, is the only girl in this working-class family …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 