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.

Twice each day while I was quarantined because a neighbor was awaiting coronavirus test results, a nurse came to my apartment to take my temperature. One morning, I forgot to put in my hearing aids, so I didn’t respond to her knock until she pounded on the door like a lumberjack. Wh

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

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

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

Here’s another patriarchal hangover that is affecting the 2020 election. According to several studies, likeability is optional to voters if the candidate is male, but is a requirement for a female. Also true is that people view forceful women as lecturing but give a thumbs up to a m

  Indigenous tribes in the Brazilian Amazon are locked in a battle with the government to preserve their lands and way of life. So far, they have shunned all offers of money.  The rest of human civilization could learn from their values. After all, where do you buy drinking wate

I read an article recently about torture during the George W. Bush administration. Apparently, waterboarding was so brutal the contract interrogator sought to stop the procedure.  Each time he made his plea, the CIA refused and threatened to bring in someone tougher. Eventually, the

The latest round of scandals involving the President and the Attorney General is another body blow to our democracy. True, we’ve seen cozy relationships between a President and the Department of Justice before: John Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy as U. S. Attorney Gen

Here’s what I’d like to know: after the impeachment trial, why did Donald Trump’s favorability numbers rise in opinion polls? The uptick occurred not only among Republicans but also among independent voters. I find that last bit of information, worrying, and I’m not alone.  O