To Comfort The Afflicted
And Afflict The Comfortable
Time To Get Rude
When a fox attacks a hen house, is it uncivil for the hens to raise a ruckus? Two Supreme Court justices say it is. Elevating collegiality above social justice, right-wing extremist Amy Coney Barrett and progressive jurist Sonia Sotomayor have jointly been hailing America’s top court as a model of genteel political discourse, claiming that […]
A Tale Of Two Contagions
Real life froze four Marches ago. Clocks stood still. Memory turned into before and after. The Covid pandemic claimed more than a million American lives. We don’t speak of it much, but we carry a deep sense of loss for all we missed. The trips we didn’t take. The friends or lovers we never met. […]
Are These Republicans Mocking Social Conservatives?
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace was in Washington telling a story about how her “fiance” wanted more action in bed earlier that day. “And I was like, ‘No baby, we don’t got time for that this morning.’” To which she added, “He can wait. I’ll see him later tonight.” The occasion was a Christian prayer […]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Farce – And Our Tragedy
When a neophyte named Edward Moore Kennedy first ran for the Senate in 1962 at barely 30 years old, his primary opponent delivered a debate quip that still echoes. “If your name were Edward Moore,” cracked Ed McCormack, then Massachusetts attorney general, “your candidacy would be a joke.” Ted Kennedy won that primary, ascended to […]
Illustrating Paths Toward Peace In Times Of War
Accepting the Best Actor Academy Award for his role as Robert Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy dedicated his Oscar to “the peacemakers” in our post-atomic bomb world. That struck a chord close to home. My mother wrote the book on women peacemakers. An Austrian aristocratic novelist. A Guatemalan indigenous peasant. A Pakistani girl. The Chicago founder of […]