When I was a kid In the 1940s a movie ticket cost 25 cents. For that price, I watched two features, a cartoon, and a newsreel. World War 11 was in full swing at the time, so I saw far too many images of death and destruction than was good for me, particularly the images of the Red
As April 23 is William Shakespeare’s birth and death date, being alert to language adaptations inspired by the coronavirus seems appropriate. One group of new words pertain to how the illness has changed our daily lives. A second are words the President has ascribed with new meaning
The trouble with a mystery is that while it piques curiosity, It also invites suspicion. Imagining bad motives on some other person’s part makes compromises difficult and erodes a sense of community. Anyone who’s followed these blogs, even occasionally, has encountered one of my d
During this pandemic, I keep reflecting on the opening lines of Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities: It was the best of times and the worst of times. The words suggest that fate has a fickle side. For example, thieves might be happy that wearing a mask in public is acceptable.
Keeping up relationships is a challenge during the current coronavirus pandemic. At my retirement center, the residents on the 13th floor open their apartment doors during the dinner hour to join each other in a round of “God Bless America.” Another man uses Zoom, an online video
THE WRATH OF GAYA While the number of coronavirus victims rises in the United States, it’s difficult to see a man like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the scientist who led us through the AID’s epidemic, take his marching orders from President Donald Trump, a bungling, babbling buffoon whose a
Even a pandemic has its humorous aspects. Isis terrorists have been warned to stay out of Europe for fear they will catch the coronavirus, (The Week, March 27, 2020, pg. 6.) Sex workers in Nevada report a booming business (Ibid, pg. 6) And there’s a rumor floating around that
Having lived through the Asian flu epidemic in the late 1950s, I’m pretty sure the coronavirus will eventually wend its way out of our system. For one thing, science knows a good deal more about how to mount a viral defense than in those earlier days. A vaccine may arrive sooner rat
With everyone’s eyes glued to statistics about the coronavirus, our attention to other upheavals falls by the wayside. Three prominent men accused of sexual crimes against women are facing the consequences. Woody Allen lost his book deal. Prince Andrew faces a criminal investigati
Rudyard Kipling’s poem IF is a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson, a Victorian war hero who led the failed Jameson Raid against the Transvaal Republic. I know this history because in the 1960s I taught at Jameson High School in Zimbabwe. The school was named in the man’s honor