Category Archives: Posts

HILLARY AND THE GENDER ISSUE

Respondents to a recent poll are divided on whether Hillary Clinton’s being of the female persuasion will help or hurt her chances. I think that it ought, in any case, to help her. Yes, I know there’s the idea out there that we shouldn’t vote for a woman candidate just because of gender, any more […]

September 3, 2016 – 2:36 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

IMAGINING A WORLD HEALING SUMMIT

After Nice, it’s not just assault weapons we ought to ban, but trucks. It’s tempting to declare it official: the world’s going to hell in a handbasket. I doubt that would hold up statistically—see Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.” But it sure seems like it. Seems like every morning […]

August 12, 2016 – 7:04 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged | Comments (0)

MISS LITELLA AND THE INFAMOUS CARTOON

The recent uproar over the Dave Granlund cartoon and the paper’s decision to run it reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit featuring Miss Emily Litella (played by Gilda Radner) as a commentator on TV news. She rants on: “What is all this fuss I hear about the Supreme Court decision on a […]

July 24, 2016 – 12:25 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

THE HITLER ANALOGY

As Trump has risen to power (insofar as media attention is power) over recent months, one hears a lot the Hitler analogy. The comparison is made seriously and fearfully in these very pages in letters to editors and op-ed columns: Trump is a dangerous demagogue, playing to racism and other fears of disaffected white workers, […]

June 29, 2016 – 12:52 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Ali: Transcendent athlete transcendent of his sport

Not sure just why I am so moved by the not untimely death of Ali. It might have something to do with how he used his fame in that dangerous and exploitative sport to transcend the sport– even while being exploited, to refuse to be exploited. This from a “New Yorker” blog by David Remnick: […]

June 5, 2016 – 3:14 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

HIROSHIMA: THE APOLOGY ISSUE

It’s one of those acts for which history will honor the Obama’s presidency that, for a moment at least, he made Hiroshima the focus of the world’s attention. It was an appropriately solemn speech.. But, while dramatizing the horror of that bomb descending on a whole city, the president did not,, as been widely emphasized, […]

May 27, 2016 – 9:34 am | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Walking with an added dimension

I took a walk the other day. I take a walk a lot of days, but this was different. I was walking with a couple of thousand of others in a fundraiser for Alzheimers research. It wasn’t an especially nice day for walking–the wind was blowing too hard for comfort. But it was a good […]

May 21, 2016 – 2:06 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

THE BINGE-WATCHING PHENOM

In a recent “New Yorker,” Clive James owned up to binge-watching “Game of Thrones,” a most un-”New Yorker”ish thing to do, one would think. But binge-watching is where it’s at, our new favorite thing. Suddenly a respectable thing. Everybody you meet has a new fav they are touting. Those who might have turned up their […]

May 13, 2016 – 11:22 am | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged | Comments (0)

WHAT THE WORD “PHONE” MEANS THESE DAYS

The word “phone” is more popular than ever, but what does it mean, now that the device the word used to refer to is all but obsolete? What does a kid of, say, under 15 years old, understand by the sound “phone” (fone? foan?) ? “Mouse” is probably more often used these days in its […]

May 7, 2016 – 3:21 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

LIE IN A HIGH PLACE

What do we make of HBO’s “Confirmation”? Seen by millions, this movie strongly suggests that Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas perjured himself in 1991 in denying the accusations of Anita Hill of sexual harassment. The story is not just of the personal disgrace for Thomas but of the national scandal that he was ever confirmed. […]

April 29, 2016 – 2:04 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)