Felled by ageism, Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 campaign for U. S. President, and the country lost one of its greatest leaders. A gracious man, he put the nation above his ambition and ended Democratic anxiety about his ability to defeat Donald Trump.  On the upside, his decision

On Monday, March 5, Katie Porter, Democratic congresswoman from California, disagreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker had earlier commented that because a candidate was a woman it was no reason to vote for her.  Porter disagreed and so do I.  All things being equal, wo

At 16, I knew everything.  Had I been truly wise, I’d have dropped out of school and kept my good opinion of myself. As it stands, the older I get, the less I know.   Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, seems to share my state of bewilderment.  (“From 9/11 to 11/9” by Gra

Abuses against women abound in the world, not only in times of war but as a condition of ordinary life.  Pakistan’s bill to ban child marriages  recently died because the Council of Islamic Ideology “declared the legislation un-Islamic.” (Excerpted from the Washington Post by

When I served in local politics,  I, and some of my predecessors, worked hard to shut down a local nursing home in the eastern corner of the county.  It was rickety and posed health hazards for the residents, but it had an antebellum grandeur and its patients, who had lived there ma