Earlier this week, my wife Lucy called my attention to an opinion piece in The New York Times many of you might have seen. The writer was Dr. Sabrina Strings, an African-American associate professor of sociology at the University of California-Irvine. She recalled attending a meeting five years ago with experts on public health and ...
On Saturday May 9, I was writing in my journal about depression. No, not about clinical depression. Rather, about the gnawing depression caused by contemplating the future of our country if we don’t vote out Republicans in November. Each day’s news brings more evidence of what’s at stake as long as Republicans hold power ...
One of the most inane aphorisms tossed around is that one shouldn’t mix politics and religion. It ranks right up there with “everything happens for a reason” on the list of adages that drive me crazy. One organization that emphatically rejects the notion that politics and religion shouldn’t mix is Sojourners, an American Christian ...
Note from the QD: If you are puzzled by the photo atop this blog, then you have a short memory. My general Covid 19 malaise has morphed, hopefully temporarily, into outright pessimism. And it’s not the virus itself that’s causing my spirits to sag; rather, it’s the pandemic’s collateral damage. Here are some things ...
Living through the pandemic here in New Orleans gives one the dubious opportunity to see first-hand how the Covid 19 virus disproportionately affects the poor and the non-white. There is a myth being propagated in the country that the virus is an indiscriminate killer, that rich and poor alike are vulnerable, that we are ...
(Photo above: The Quixotic Deacon, Crandall, and Walker at Saints vs Titans, Nashville, Dec. 2019) On a fall afternoon almost 50 years ago, Lucy and I looked down from the stands of Tulane Stadium, the old Sugar Bowl, hopelessly watching the last play of a nail-biter between the Saints and the Detroit Lions. The ...
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 ...
