Menu
Andrew Sullivan was the best known blogger in the country for many years until he burned out from the constant posting. He has a new gig at New York Magazine with a format somewhere between blogging and a regular opinion column. I think this is his second piece in the…
Read More »I’m thinking this morning, What’s wrong with this picture? President Trump, less than a month in office, has everyone talking about him and his White House crew. He continues to suck all the media oxygen out of the air. The mainstream media, including cable TV political reporters, have gone back…
Read More »In the NYTimes today, opinion columnist Roger Cohen writes: Facts matter. The federal judiciary is pushing back. The administration is leaking. Journalism (no qualifier needed) has never been more important. Truth has not yet perished, but to deny that it is under siege would be to invite disaster. Read his…
Read More »The new president does not seem happy unless he is punishing some person or some group. The vibe coming from the White House is a punitive one. He and his crew are going to teach California a lesson for objecting to Trump’s views. Today, he offered to destroy the career…
Read More »Thanks to Prof. Sue Kim of UMass Lowell for Sharing this Baltimore Sun opinion column about the root of authoritarian control—somebody on the ground has to enforce the authoritarian ruler’s orders. As mentioned in the column, Trump and Bannon did not stop people from entering at the airports. Civil disobedience…
Read More »Garrison Keillor, author, long-time radio host of “Prairie Home Companion,” and one-time visitor to Lowell on the stage of Lowell Memorial Auditorium, has a new essay that appeared in papers all over the country this week. He titled it “Trump Is What He Is, and God Help Us Now.” He…
Read More »Student Mario Savio at UC Berkeley during the Free Speech protests in 1964.
Read More »Web photo courtesy of ABC News Over the weekend, we saw two competing visions of America in the form of citizens standing (and marching) for what they believe is best for the country, all of it in public view on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. I wrote this poem…
Read More »I wrote this poem in late 2008 after Barack Obama was elected president but before his inauguration. The title is from his campaign chant that he got from a woman who supported him: “Fired up! Ready to Go!” The poem is not so much about him as the sense of…
Read More »Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris in 2002 captured businessman, now president-elect, Donald Trump talking about his favorite movie, “Citizen Kane.” Here’s an interview with Morris and a film clip. Thanks to lithub.com for the source material.
Read More »