Category Archives: Commentary

Major changes in society can be accomplished by a fast-emerging, broad-based civic jolt so obvious and persuasive that it overwhelms the entrenched powers. The most urgent job is for people to organize to get Trump and Pence to step aside from their bungling, making-matters-worse mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. The White House should let a professional pandemic control specialist with public health experience and an appreciation of science replace the current and ongoing Trump horror show. Continue reading →

Had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants. Continue reading →

In July 1864, Confederate forces led by General Jubal Early attacked Fort Stevens and Fort DeRussy on the outskirts of Washington, DC. Union forces drove them away after two days of skirmishes, but the battle threw a scare into the capital city and constituted a high point in the Confederacy’s Shenandoah Valley campaigns. Continue reading →

A team of 85 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Peru on June 3 to help the Andean nation tackle the coronavirus pandemic. That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced another tightening of the sanctions screws. This time he targeted seven Cuban entities, including Fincimex, one of the principal financial institutions handling remittances to the country. Also targeted was Marriott International, which was ordered to cease operations in Cuba, and other companies in the tourism sector, an industry that constitutes 10 percent of Cuba’s GDP and has been devastated globally by the pandemic. Continue reading →

The painful truth is that the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas has already ceased to exist as a political body that holds much sway or relevance, either to the Palestinian people or to Abbas’ former benefactors, namely the Israeli and the American governments. Continue reading →

Millions of white people glorify mass murderers because their sense of identity and place in society is deeply tied to white supremacy. Continue reading →

The US emerged from WW II as the only major power unscathed by its ravages and more powerful than ever when world peace was restored. Continue reading →

There’s a famous episode from the very first season of the legendary “Twilight Zone” TV series. Its title: “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” Continue reading →

Under Boris Johnson’s leadership Britain has again been dubbed ‘The sick man of Europe’ due to his mismanagement of Covid-19, a failure of judgement that has propelled his nation to the top of Europe’s fatality charts. Continue reading →

Words are inadequate to describe certain experiences that happen outside the law of cause and effect. Although they are universal, they are often so weird that to recount them makes most people uncomfortable, unless they are New Agers, spiritualists, or mind-curers who believe in the great American tradition of the happiness machine and revelations on every bathroom wall, Jesus’s face in cloud formations, or apparitions in every shadow. I am none of those. Continue reading →

Besides not being Trump, the Democrats offer nothing, but think they can win with a candidate who has no constituency, charisma or any platform positions that would attract more voters. Continue reading →

For those who have been fearing that things have gotten so crazy that civilization might collapse, take heart! It has already happened. You have survived. We are now in the ruins of civilization. Each action we take, large or small, is shaping the new world that will grow up out of the ruins of this one. Continue reading →

As the coronavirus crisis rages on, Fox News is contributing almost as much to the deaths and disease as is Trump’s White House. Continue reading →

Remember The Amityville Horror, the 1979 hair-on-edge thriller that would become one of America’s most popular scary movies ever? The horror may soon be returning, this time in real life. Continue reading →

ESTRAGON: Well, shall we go?
VLADIMIR: Yes, let’s go.
[They do not move.]
Curtain.
Continue reading →

I can practically recite your Harry Potter books. I grew up in a family that felt like the Dursleys, and I began having chronic migraines at 14 so Harry’s scar hurting was very relatable. Continue reading →

For writers like me, one of the soundest pieces of advice over the last week came from columnist and film historian Mark Harris, who tweeted on Saturday, “I am calling on all my white colleagues to join me in a 24-hour moratorium on personal essays about our feelings.” Continue reading →

I often travel between the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts and Albany, New York. The part of I-90 that I drive on is called the Berkshire connector. Forty-nine years ago three friends and I traveled on the same road on the way to visit a US expatriate in Ontario, Canada, who had left the US during the Vietnam War era, looking for a different life as tens of thousands of others did amid the upheavals of that historic epoch. Sam left the US soon after his enlistment in the US Navy ended. Like tens of thousands of others who had left the US, Sam had traveled to different countries trying to find a semblance of peace amid all the insanity of that era. Continue reading →

Watch and see: this debate over police brutality and accountability is about to get politicized into an election-year referendum on who should occupy the White House. Continue reading →

Black rebellion brings insecurity to those in power, as editors, mayors and even long dead criminals are being called to account. Continue reading →

Since Western powers leapt into the fray to remove the long-standing Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the oil-rich country, once the wealthiest in Africa, has been embroiled in conflicts. Continue reading →

I am not trying to be cute and play with words. That title is meant to convey what it says, so let me explain. Continue reading →

You’ve probably already seen the footage of a white police officer named Derek Chauvin cheerfully suffocating a black man named George Floyd to death with his knee while Floyd pleaded for his life. This went viral around the same time as another viral video where a white woman in Central Park called New York police on a black man who posed no threat to her while making sure to inform the police that he was black, and just weeks after video footage surfaced of a black man named Ahmaud Arbery being shot to death by a white former cop and his son while out for a jog. Continue reading →

The nationwide protests have forced the black quisling class to reveal themselves as agents of the racial and economic status quo. Continue reading →

At 98, historian Bernard Weisberger has seen it all. Born in 1922, he grew up watching newsreels of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler as they rose to power in Europe. He vividly remembers Mussolini posturing to crowds from his balcony in Rome, chin outthrust, right arm extended. Nor has he forgotten Der Fuehrer’s raspy voice on radio, interrupted by cheers of “Heil Hitler,” full of menace even without pictures. Continue reading →

You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t noticed. His verbal bombshells are louder than ever, but Donald J. Trump is no longer president of the United States. Continue reading →

Don’t pity this year’s crop of graduates because this COVID-19 pandemic caused them to miss out on the antics of their senior year and the pomp and circumstance of graduation. Continue reading →

This time, we are told, it is different and that president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is absolutely serious about his decision to absolve his leadership from all previous agreements signed with Israel and the United States. Continue reading →

I never met the great basketball player, Bob Cousy, the man known as “the Houdini of the Hardwood,” yet he somehow influenced my life in ways I never knew, or to be more accurate, in ways I didn’t reflect upon except in superficial ways. He was the guy who brought professional basketball into the modern era with his bag of fancy tricks that included no-look and behind-the-back passes, uncanny dribbling, and a magical court sense that made the fast break into an exquisite art form. The captain and point-guard of the Boston Celtics from 1950-1963, Cousy led the Celtics to six NBA titles, made thirteen all-star teams, and changed professional basketball from a stodgy, boring, and slow game into a fast-paced spectacle, entertainment as much as sport. He was a wizard with a basketball and set the stage for Guy Rodgers, “Pistol Pete” Maravich, Bob Dylan, Magic Johnson, and Steve Nash, among other tricksters, modern Hermes. Continue reading →

I keep fantasizing about a moment in Washington like the one at the end of The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy accidentally throws water on the Wicked Witch of the West. The witch melts and suddenly the evil spell she’s cast on all her creepy guardsmen and flying monkeys is broken. They snap out of it and come to their senses. Continue reading →