The week of George Herbert Bush’s funeral showed us an America divided.  Republicans, the party of disgruntled whites, lionized the deceased president in an effort to reclaim the moral high ground.  Democrats spent their time pointing to the gaping disparity between the conduct of

Recently, I sat down to lunch at a gathering of former colleagues, all of them eager to discuss the outcome of the 2018 midterm elections. Several expressed hope for the future, but one skeptic reminded us of the numerous executive orders President Donald Trump had signed in the past

Recently, someone posted a remark by playwright Harold Pinter on Facebook.  It read, “How can you write a happy play? Drama is about conflict and general degrees of perturbation, disarray. I’ve never been able to write a happy play…”  I did a thesis on Pinter when I was

Nobody likes a multi-billionaire who stiffs his workers.  Donald Trump accuses Jeff Bezos of greed and Bernie Sanders agrees, suggesting a man who pockets $157 billion a year while his warehouse workers live on food stamps is a man whose conscience is questionable.*  While Trump’s

Weaponizing anger is a dangerous game.  Bernie Sanders tried it in the last Presidential election and so did Donald Trump.  Trump did it better and he remains a beacon for those who feel disenfranchised.  What both candidates did was tap into the residue loathing still with us from

Is America becoming more conservative or more liberal? That depends upon how you read the demographics.  Four out of five Americans live in urban areas, (“Notes” The Week, August 17/24, 2018, pg. 16), and if your believe  a report in the Washington Post, urban areas tend to vote

Dinosaurs ruled the earth for 65 million years.  They may have managed it because they had  small brains.  They didn’t possess enough grey matter to imagine how to tinker with their environment.  Homo sapiens used theirs  to disrupt the planet.  So many changes are  far f

Recently, I got entangled with a company’s phone representative for whom English was a second language. Both her grammar and her accent made communication difficult.  Finally, she brought her supervisor on the line.  His, too, was hard to understand.   “Do you live in the Unit

Recently, House Representative Maxine Water’s exhorted right-minded  people to  confront President Donald Trump’s cabinet members in public places to protest his unconscionable policy on immigration.  (Click) Several Facebook friends agreed.  One man remarked if others weren�

In her essay, “Musical Chairs,” Rebecca Solnit parses the numerous splits in American politics. I  particularly like her description of the Republican party.  She charges it “preaches the gospel of austerity while running up deficits,” and extols individual rights, “except