Nick Kristof is the New York Times’s Certified Good-Guy columnist. While he’s an intrepid reporter, who has earned two Pulitzers, he’s best known for an uncanny ability to make even an unfolding tragedy like the one he recounts here feel like an upbeat family story. Almost effortlessly he turns it into what could be the … Continue reading The Nice Guy and the Madman Prophet
From the New York Review of Books, March 25 2021: Regina Marler: Fire season in California ended in mid-December, but I can’t bring myself to unpack the boxes near the front door. I threw them together overnight—family photos, backup drives, mementos, passports—in late September, when three wildfires merged, creating the Glass Fire, and burned west … Continue reading Excerpt of the Day: “Emergency Everywhere”
Poet, playwright, publisher, andactivist Lawrence Ferlinghetti died of interstitial lung disease on February 22, 2021. (This post compiled from various online sources.) He was born Lawrence Monsanto Ferling on March 24, 1919 in Yonkers, New York. His father, an Italian immigrant, had shortened the family name upon arrival in America. When Ferlinghetti discovered the lengthier … Continue reading Lawrence Ferlinghetti
A year ago last week was not the only time there was a plot to take over the Capitol. A somewhat similar scheme was aimed at Franklin Roosevelt, to keep him from acting as president. It was stopped by, of all people, a retired general of Quaker heritage. There are many eerie and unsettling echoes … Continue reading A Prequel to 1/6/2021: Was This When a Fighting Quaker Saved FDR and America??
Philadelphia civil rights attorney Mark Schwartz has issued an open letter to the federal attorney for Washington DC, in the matter of potential charges in the wake of the U.S. Capitol invasion of January 6. The letter is below, as I believe his recommendations are timely and should be part of the discussion of legal … Continue reading Should Felony Murder charges be lodged against the January 6 Instigators?