Here are a few of what I felt were highlights of the first day and night at the DNC (seen from my recliner at home, but a marathon even so). As I predicted, the Chicago cops were out on their bikes for the DNC, big time. Inside, the speeches went on and … Continue reading DNC: Monday, Monday– Can’t Stop That Day . . .
Three hundred and seven years ago, on July 30, 1718, William Penn died, in England. Aged 73, he had been in very poor health for almost six years, after a massive stroke in 1712. This is not exactly news. And in recent years, Penn has been out of fashion in many Quaker quarters — disowned … Continue reading William Penn Died This Week; Just When We Needed Him Most
Durham, North Carolina, and Selma, Alabama In the autumn of 2014, still settling into retirement in Durham, a question began nagging at me: was Barack Obama going to get shot in Selma Alabama the following March? Now stay with me: was I just being more than normally paranoid? The short answer is No. But what’s … Continue reading Saving Obama With Santa, In Selma 2015;
In Joe Biden’s July 5 interview with George Stephanopoulos, the president brusquely rebuffed all the reporter’s promptings about quitting his race for re-election: bad poll numbers, calls from a few elected Democrats, the panicked appeals from the pundit chorus. . . . A defiant Delaware “Meh” to them all. Then Biden made one concession: “Look. … Continue reading Biden and God
Adapted from Tell It Slant, by Emma Lapsansky-Werner, with Chuck Fager: For most of the three-plus centuries since the founding of Quakerism, Quakers had viewed the arts as snares and “distractions” from listening to the Word-of-the-Divine within. George Fox threw down the marker as early as 1678: All ye Poets, Jesters, rhimers, makers of Verses … Continue reading Tell It Slant — With Lemonade: A Book Launch at Haverford