October 2020
What Is a Patriot?
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has brought to mind what a real patriot is. We also know what is isn?t: the bully in the White House whose notion of patriotism is physically hugging a flag while smirking at his fans and trashing its institutions.
Patriotism walks on a tightrope. It can mean "my country right or wrong" or "making this a more perfect union." President Lincoln reminded us that we should listen to our "better angels" if we love our country. Real patriotism i more...
Patriotism walks on a tightrope. It can mean "my country right or wrong" or "making this a more perfect union." President Lincoln reminded us that we should listen to our "better angels" if we love our country. Real patriotism i more...
December 2018
The Final Gift of President Bush
We have all become so numbed by the constant flood of nastiness in our current politics that President George Herbert Walker Bush, our 41st president, even in dying, has given the country his final gift. His graceful death at 94 has been accompanied by memorials to his life of service and his astonishing competence as a one-term president. His passing even shamed President Trump to do what he rarely does: praise the life of this remarkable man, whom he trashed throughout his run for the 2016 pre more...
April 2016
Genocide extends back 7,000 years.
Archaeologists have just found a 7,000-year-old Stone Age mass gravesite outside of Frankfurt, Germany! This horrifying find erases what we had always thought about human behavior at the beginnings of agriculture and village life. Genocide has a long human history, but we didn?t know that it was that early in the agricultural revolution when population density could not have been large enough to provide for organized warfare.
This is just one of a number of similar mass graves. T more...
This is just one of a number of similar mass graves. T more...