Tom Friedman, longtime NYTimes columnist, treats us to some snippets of diary entries from his first trip to Afghanistan, in early 2002, with then Senator Joe Biden. Friedman opens the piece in the posture of sadder-but-wiser sage: “I was not surprised that Joe Biden decided to finally pull the plug on the U.S. presence in … Continue reading “Nation Building” on the Moon? Smarter than the U.S. in Afghanistan?
“History doesn’t repeat,” Mark Twain supposedly said, “but sometimes it rhymes.” Are the conflicts within so many American churches over LGBTQ and associated issues part of some cruel karmic sonnet? The Separation Generation’s three volumes approach this question in prose, by chronicling disruptions among five American Yearly Meetings extending roughly from 2011 to 2018 (along … Continue reading Broken Churches, Broken Nation (Again?)
Besides his work and example, Friend David Zarembka also left a valuable and underestimated resource of writings for Friends and others. We’ll sample that legacy here, and point to where more can be found. Besides some personal contact, I learned most about Dave from his book A Peace of Africa. Here’s part of that context … Continue reading David Zarembka’s Memorable Writings: A Sampler
Is it over? Has The Separation Generation finished dividing U. S. Quakers? Yes and no. Yes, in a publishing sense: Book Three, the last of The Separation Generation series, is now done and available: Shattered By the Light; or The Ruins and the Green. In Shattered by the Light, parallel conflicts over sexuality, the Bible … Continue reading Is This The End of the Separation Generation?
For several years I’ve been keeping track of the books I read. In 2020, I did pretty well, kicking it off with an enormous biography of Beethoven, byJan Swafford. I don’t look for takedowns in biographies; but spare me the hagiography. I’m an American who lived through the second half of the twentieth century; I’m … Continue reading My 2021 Booklist is a Big Bust, But Don’t Blame Frederick Douglass