I have a message for President Obama and the Democratic National Committee: Nationalize the 2014 Congressional elections coming in November by giving American voters a simple choice. Start by stealing a Republican idea, Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, which was announced six weeks before the 1994 mid-term election and is…
Read More »
NYTimes opinion-writer David Brooks speaks out on the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl issue. Read what he has to say here, and get the NYT if you want more of this kind of writing. David Brooks (web photo courtesy of NYTimes)
Read More »
I borrowed this title from Joe Donahue’s poem sequence about JFK in his 1989 book Before Creation. I imagine a drawer in an old bureau in the cellar or attic filled with collectibles from the Kennedy years. Campaign pins, scrapbooks, LIFE magazine issues. I still have in my office at…
Read More »
Two more bulletins from Martha’s Vineyard by our far-flung correspondent Ray LaPorte. So, the handy Wikipedia tells us that English seaman Bartholomew Gosnold ventured near the Atlantic coast in 1602 and named a smaller island near today’s M.V. for his young daughter who had died—and historians say the name migrated…
Read More »
One of our loyal readers and far-flung occasional correspondents, Ray LaPorte of Martha’s Vineyard, sent his reflections in anticipation of this summer’s Presidential visit to the island. Ray has been off shore for years, with his wife, Bernadette, following earlier life passages in Pawtucketville, Worcester, New York City, and Washington,…
Read More »
Why am I writing about Kentucky? Because they have a bunch of representatives and two senators in Washington, D.C., whose votes affect us in Massachusetts. We are all in this together. I found today’s news from Kentucky fascinating. The Democrat challenging Sen. Mitch McConnell for one of the state’s two…
Read More »
Here’s a hat tip to the climate-change demonstrators in Washington, D.C., who are speaking on behalf of the planet this holiday weekend. Lowelltown is as white tonight as the monuments in the capital city. I wrote this poem after a family trip to Washington in the summer of 2004. There…
Read More »
I haven’t dragged David “Uncle Dave” Brooks over here for a long time. He was irritating during the presidential election, trying to find ways to stay on Mitt Romney’s side—every once in a while he gave it up for the President, but I think Uncle Dave was always pulling for…
Read More »
Menu