Clik here to view.
U. S. Catholic defenders of Pope Francis “Mobilize” behind closed doors
Do rightwing American Catholics hate pope Francis? Is the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Jewish? On a scale of 1 to 10, would 25 be close enough? From my outside liberal Quaker perspective, Francis is not...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pauli Murray! Pauli Murray!
I’m lucky enough to live just a few blocks from Pauli Murray’s modest childhood home, which is now a National Historic site. Pauli Murray was distinguished in so many ways that it’s difficult for any...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kirill’s & Putin’s Anti-LGBT Crusade, in Ukraine, Russia & Everywhere
Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post: . . . You may be wondering what LGBT rights have to do with the bloody war in Ukraine. But Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has long framed Russian geopolitical...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Friday Follies: the Culture War & The Tostitos Hint of Lime Chip Conflict
Jamelle Bouie, one of the best new columnists for the New York Times, today highlights a recent book, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left. Jamelle Bouie [In it, he writes], “the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Quakers & the End of Abortion Rights: A Very Mixed Bag
Some liberal pundits are predicting a tidal wave of backlash against the leaked SCOTUS decision to reverse Roe & Casey, the decisions that have made abortion a right since 1973, forty-nine years...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sen. Bob Casey: The “Pro-Life” Democrat, Walking a Fine Line, On a Narrow...
Philadelphia Inquirer — May 3, 2022 by Jonathan Tamari and Max Marin Bob Casey is one of the last ‘pro-life’ Democrats. The Supreme Court decision is going to test his views. WASHINGTON — When the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Scooping the Times, With Grim Satisfaction
For a reporter, even a retired one, there’s a charge of adrenaline in a scoop — getting a story before other journalists. And if the scooped rival is the Big Kahuna, aka the New York Times, there’s an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reading “On Tyranny,” and Getting Ready
I picked up Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny the other day. I had read excerpts from it; this time it was cover to cover. It’s concise; reading only took a little over an hour. But it was more than worth...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Warfare Is Evolving. Now Even Words Conquer. Videos too.
‘Unsettling’ Fort Bragg recruitment video ignites debate over its mysterious intent Raleigh NC News & Observer BY MARK PRICE — MAY 16, 2022 A recruitment video created by Fort Bragg’s 4th...
View ArticleClik here to view.
G. W. Bush’s Accidental Moment of Truth
The “Truth Gaffe” of the Century Excerpted from The Guardian: The audience chuckled at George W Bush’s Iraq-Ukraine gaffe. I’m not laughing Arwa Mahdawi I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Seeing Our Future in the Past? Flashbacks from the 1850s
I don’t believe in reincarnation. But if I did, I’d be pretty sure that in a previous life, I shambled through the American 1850s. That might help explain why lately I’ve been having vivid dreamlike...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Three Very Special Quotes of the Weekend
#1- The owners of Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the rifle apparently used in the massacre of 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., are deep-pocketed Republican donors, giving to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is This the “Pope Francis Alternative”? Ukraine and “Effective Nonviolent...
Pope Francis, Ukraine and “effective nonviolent resistance” National Catholic Reporter – May 30, 2022 by Eli McCarthy — Opinion Ukraine – so many new graves A bird sits on a cross amid newly made...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Quakerism was born in a terrible civil war. Could it survive another one?
[NOTE: This review does not mention that amid the spreading devastation of the English Civil War, which in 1649 led to the execution of the defeated Charles I, a new radical religious group, derisively...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ukraine, War Notes: The End of Euphoria, A Shift in The Odds
Washington Post: Ukraine is running out of ammunition as prospects dim on the battlefield Hopes that Ukraine will be able to reverse Russian gains are fading in the face of superior firepower By...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Pre-Autopsy of the Senate Gun Package: Not half a loaf; not half a slice; a...
COMMENT: The restrained Associated Press headline on its story reads “Senate negotiators announce a deal on guns, breaking logjam.” The Raleigh NC News & Observer called it (more accurately, I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It CAN Happen Here, Like It Did In Zimbabwe
Washington Post — Opinion I saw Mugabe wreck a democracy. The Jan. 6 hearings matter — a lot. Opinion by Evan Mawarire — June 14, 2022 Evan Mawarire, an evangelical pastor and the director of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Democracy In Peril: Progressive Billionaires to the Rescue?? (Well, Maybe . . .)
“Money,” truthfully spake the legendary California pol Jesse Unruh, “is the mother’s milk of politics.” And if money, rather than love, is All You Need (as spake, or crooned, the legendary Beatles),...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remember “The Stench”? More Comment & Dissent on Roe’s End
The formal dissent, jointly written by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sotomayor, minces few words but primarily adopts a tone of deep concern or even alarm about the implications of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Why We Did It” — A Review in Pieces – Part 1
Timothy Miller is a repentant ex-Republican operative, now a key member of “The Bulwark.” This is a group of mostly like-minded onetime GOP operatives, now Never Trumpers, still “conservative” on many...
View Article