Given the strained relations with Canada, I’m forwarding this opinion piece from The Globe and Mail in Ontario. I received it yesterday from George Shafer, a correspondent who lives in Almonte, Ontario, Canada. Mr. Shafer is a frequent contributor to these pages. What the Trump assault on American democracy has taught us Marcus Gee Toronto…

The ongoing Russo-Ukraine war is not going to come out okay for the West. Rumors and facts on the ground all point to capitulation to Russian aggression. It appears inevitable given the equivocation and inability of the president to balance reality with a righteous regard for the belligerents. I keep asking myself what Theodore Roosevelt,…

Many of us have frequently judged our friends by suggesting they are “foxhole buddies.” What we mean, of course, is that they can be trusted to stand by us under the worst circumstances. We have confidence that they will not bolt when things get tough; they can be counted on to hang tough and watch…

Friends and acquaintances ask me all the time what’s wrong, can’t the Trump supporters see what is really going on; don’t they see that Trump is trying to undermine our constitutional government and is committing horrible atrocities? Why, they ask, can’t those who voted for Trump say they made a mistake? Two answers stand out….

On this Easter Sunday let us hope and work toward peace among all peoples. Let us pray to our faiths and embrace our shared humanity across the globe. Let us have the courage to right the wrongs in Ukraine and the Middle East. Above all, however, as Americans, let us have the courage and humility…

I always cringe when I hear our president or political leaders say that the United States is the greatest country in the world. It makes me want to look around sheepishly to see if anyone is listening. I wonder what non-Americans think when they hear such bravado. Moreover, it is just simply impolite and rude…

Remember Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the dystopian novel about book burning in a future America where people memorized entire books to save them for posterity. Published in 1953, the book was supposedly inspired by the Second Red Scare and McCarthy era as well as the book burnings by the Nazis. Today, during the “Trump Scare”…

Footnotes left off yesterday’s posting, "The Genie and the Joker." Sorry for the confusion. *The Joker, an infamous comic book character introduced in 1940s, was the arch villain in the BatMan stories. He was a sadistic psychopath who revelled in spreading chaos while seeking revenge against the establishment, most frequently depicted by BatMan and Gotham…

As the second Trump administration continues to foment chaos, it has become clear that the president and his advisors are intent on suborning both Congress and the judiciary to its power. On day 75 since inauguration, the genie is out of the bottle – the horrible truth is that the American people have elected an…

When I was teaching history and politics, many years ago now, I used to pontificate about the genius of American politics being its locus somewhere in the center of the political spectrum. American politics could not be defined as either left or right, radical or reactionary. In short, our politics eschewed the extremes and was…