Author Archive

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Mid-term exuberance may be irrational, but surely we are entitled to enjoy the respite from the deep anxiety and foreboding of the days leading up to the election. The dreaded Red Wave turned into a Pink Dribble, and…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. It was always going to be a tough mid-term election, based on history. Only in 1934 and 2002 did a first-term President’s party not suffer Congressional losses.  In those two cases, the public rallied to an existential crisis,…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The critically important Pennsylvania Senate race between Lt. Governor John Fetterman and TV celebrity Mehmet Oz – whom Oprah Winfrey used to call “America’s Doctor – is too close to call. Winfrey gave Oz his big break. He…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Several years back, I was driving west on Route 9 in Wellesley. While stopped in the passing lane at a red light, my car was hit from behind. Since the light was still red, I got out to…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. See Marjorie’s “Autumn books Part 1” Factfulness by Hans Rosling was recommended by friends Catherine and Dana at a summertime brunch. They urged the book as an antidote to our discussion about the dystopian world situation. The book reveals…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris is an amazing debut novel by a 29-year-old man about racial and social tensions in the deep South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.  Harris’ prose is luscious; his characters are…

The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Ron DeSantis has had quite a summer. Running for re-election in 2022, positioning himself for a 2024 run for President, Florida’s Republican governor has been trolling Democrats, whipping up culture wars, cruelly using asylum-seeking Venezuelans as campaign props,…

The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. It felt a little like my gasp when Hillary uttered the term “deplorables” to describe Trump supporters. That meant trouble ahead. Biden’s poorly qualified assertion that the pandemic is over may not have been quite that explosive. But it was a…

The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. It was nearly 90 years ago that thousands of Germans gathered around bonfires to destroy books by leading writers, artists and other intellectuals, many of them Jewish. It was only the beginning of a fascist movement to eradicate Jews…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. He was 32 years old and had been sworn into Congress just three days previously. There he was on January 6th, on the floor of the House, standing on broken glass, watching violence erupt, stunned to see Republicans…