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Recently, we marked the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. But in fact, for most of those who had done the fighting, the War did not end on September 2, 1945, because they were still in uniform and very far from home. Veteran’s Day, November 11, 1945, found more than eight million…
Tuesday, I decided to think seriously about trolls. And trolling. It was an op-ed in the morning newspaper that inspired me: “How Russia trolls the 2020 U.S. vote.” What are the Russians up to? I’ve been wondering about this since all the brouhaha just prior to the 2016 election. To be honest I’ve been skeptical….
It has been a month since the death of George Floyd. Nearly two weeks since the death of Rayshard Brooks. Several months since the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. And the massive, widespread, worldwide demonstrations that were sparked immediately after Floyd’s death have continued unabated. Mobs of angry demonstrators are pulling down monuments,…
Even those of us who think we harbor no prejudices and claim to be color blind…are not. We note what people look like. We notice what the people we encounter…the people we meet…the people we know, whether slightly or very well…look like. Faces, first of all. Of course. But also height. weight, hair color, eye…
From all-white schools in an all-white suburb to the all-white Katharine Gibbs School to a job in an all-white law office on Boston’s State Street. It wasn’t until I changed jobs in my early twenties that I actually had daily interactions with black co-workers, some of whom came to be my friends. I was hired…
Each of us has come by our awareness of black history differently. And thus there are those who see this history as an obvious cause of the current crisis in America. Or “a poor excuse.” My own awareness of black history was a long time coming. I grew up in an all-white suburb of Boston….
Yesterday we watched, mouths agape, as the police apprehended a car thief in our neighbor’s front yard. It was quickly done. No shots were fired. The perpetrator was not roughed up or unnecessarily manhandled in any way. And when it was all over, the only thing I felt was sad. This is how the scene…
Utah. Omaha. We see, in our collective mind’s eye, brave U.S. soldiers storming off landing craft in full battle gear, courageously wading—sometimes swimming—to shore, through a monsoon of bullets and exploding artillery shells. What we do not see—are the “Seabees” of the U.S. Navy’s Construction Battalions (CBs), working at breakneck speed, just beyond the view…
It’s now or never! Here I am, stuck in the house for an interminable time. Why not? The challenge? Thousands. Yes. Thousands… of pictures. They have been accumulating for my entire lifetime. It started with snapshots here and there. Tucked into a scrapbook or box of mementoes. A couple of baby pictures. A few from…
At one point in time, I had three file cabinets and a total of ten file drawers. All were jammed with folders. As we prepared to down-size…and move across the country, I made it my mission to “get rid” of all that “clutter.” The file cabinets were dispersed. The antique walnut one that Mr. Penfire…