The air around the world is cleaner, less pollutants entering the sea, streets are less noisy. Families are spending time together, less planes flying around the world, luxury cruise ships are not dirtying up the sea. People are looking at local solutions for needs, and taking time to wash their hands. The hectic pace ...
A good friend of mine, Mary Berlinghof of Newport, RI, shared an opinion piece from The New York Times with me today. It was written by a Times Contributing Opinion Writer, Margaret Renkl, whose byline caught my eye since she is from Nashville, where my daughter and her family live. Please read it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/opinion/lent-spring.html?referringSource=articleShare ...
I’m writing this on the morning after, so please be gentle with your criticism of what I have to say. After all, I am hungover . . . from watching the Democrats debate in Las Vegas. While I’m sure there are varying reactions to the ugly scene mis-labeled as a debate, my personal take-aways are ...
A good deal has been written about the Christian Right and its support for and influence on Donald Trump. In fact, I have written about it on several occasions. For example: https://thequixoticdeacon.com/general/do-you-know-what-a-wec-is/ Remember my shorthand term for these people? WECs or White Evangelical Christians. They are led by the Franklin Grahams and Jerry ...
Of all the candidates who have pulled out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, the one I’m most perplexed about is Cory Booker. Why in the world did he fail to compete? When he withdrew, he said he had run out of money. OK, but I’m still baffled about why he labored ...
While I try to orient my life around the church calendar, I sometimes lose track of lesser feasts and fasts as I am spun ’round in the whirlwind of secular life. The day I wrote this post a very secular habit — reading op-eds in The New York Times — reminded me that it was ...
My mom visited us here in New Orleans recently and something she said made me stop and think. She said nearly everyone she knows expects Donald Trump will win a second term. I retorted that she did indeed know one person who believes Trump won’t be re-elected — ME! — and reminded her that her ...
Both my editor, Fitz McAden, and I grew up as proud sons of South Carolina. I remember Fitz’s father, Jim, taking us to the state capitol to visit the governor’s office when we were small boys. The same day, we posed for a snapshot beneath a statue of George Washington on the capitol grounds. ...
My October Fun About a month ago, I had back surgery at Tufts Medical Center. I’d been warned repeatedly that this was “major surgery” and that recovery would be long. But I didn’t really need to be warned because my dear sister Gracie underwent similar surgery in June and I’d watched her recovery. So ...
Author’s note 1: This will be the last blog you will receive for a while as I am going to have some mechanical imperfections of my lower spine corrected surgically on October 1st. My sister, Gracie, recently had similar surgery and I got to watch some of her recovery from a ringside seat in New Orleans. ...
