Month: February 2021

After a year of self-imposed isolation and reluctance to see friends and family, we finally busted out. We invited three oyster-loving friends who we knew had also been holed up by themselves during the pandemic. That and the fact that the five of us, average age 74, all had our second vaccine shot gave us…

For a long time now, especially the last four years, conservatives and Republicans have been bashing the media for fraudulent reporting and spinning the news. They argue, of course, that the media is liberal and biased in its reporting. There may be something to this charge, but not for the reasons given. An article on…

Every other week or so, an article on the plight of Venezuela crops up in the news. Sometimes it is a report that there are not enough drugs and supplies for the hospitals; sometimes it is about the lack of food in the markets or about the tragedy of people seeking gold in the Amazonia…

It’s cold and rainy again today. Yesterday was a warm and sunny day; a tease of hope that spring is coming. This morning the news seems especially sour after the prospect of a new start under the Biden administration. It is business as usual as the media partisans and politicians return to their barricades. We…

I’m just a little bit embarrassed to be whining about the cold and hankering for spring when so many friends and others are suffering through severe cold and unprecedented winter storms. My friends in Iowa and in Canada have real reasons to complain, and now even my sister down in Texas is suffering through horrible…

As a kid growing up in Iowa, I hated rhubarb. It was everywhere in the gardens and sometimes growing wild. I thought it was weird stuff since it was sour and tasted awful. Not for me! I can’t remember where or when I first tasted a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie, but I do know…

There’s plenty of blame and shame to go around. As the oft repeated adage goes, “we get what we deserve.” Still, we might ask, how is it that so many people were duped into voting for and supporting a sociopath for president? Why is it that for more than four years the nation has suffered…

It should be apparent to those of us who keep up with politics that the historical center has increasingly come under assault from both the left and the right. This is nowhere better illustrated than in the two impeachment trials of the former president. Presently, it looks as if he will be acquitted even though…

Writing about immigration got me to thinking about the large number of Mexicans who have been migrating here before there was literally a United States. Spanish speaking people and Mexicans have been coming here since the late 16th century, long before Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. After the Mexican War in 1848, there were far more…

Recently, I read an interesting article in which the writer commented that our politicians and media could make “a cultural issue of a bologna sandwich.” The words struck me as an apt expression to describe the politics of immigration from almost the founding of our republic. Shortly after Biden won and began outlining plans for…