There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed. — Mahatma Gandhi I finished a real “page turner” of a non-fiction book yesterday, The Billion Dollar Whale. It dissects the misdeeds of fugitive financier, thief and con man Jho Low, a 35-year-old Malaysian who stole billions ...
This week I was reading New Orleans’ daily paper, The Advocate, when I noticed two stories on the same page. ( If you expected me to say The Times Picayune when I said the New Orleans daily paper, let me explain. Sometime after Hurricane Katrina, The Times Picayune was sold and, later, switched for a ...
It is the morning of Sept. 28, 2018. Yesterday the nation watched the Senate Judiciary Committee grill Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh and resolve exactly nothing. Now half the country is outraged at the prospect that Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed and the other half is outraged that he might not be. ...
A recent trip to Europe on “LPGA business” afforded me a respite from the flood of alarming news rushing unrelentingly from the Trump White House. My time away temporarily relieved the heartburn I get from living in Trumpland but, alas, coming home and catching up on all the bad news brought on another bout of ...
Everyone knows the old adage that those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it. I thought of this when I recently finished reading Blood and Faith by Matthew Carr. The book is subtitled The Purging of Muslim Spain. It traces events in Spain at the end of the 16th century and the ...
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s seminal work, The Canterbury Tales, we meet a disreputable character known as The Pardoner. In the Prologue to his tales, Chaucer tells how The Pardoner cleverly dupes his victims and amasses great wealth through preaching. He is known to be ribald and irreverent but tells a tale of great irony that illustrates ...
If you look back through the archives of my blogs, you will find only one dealing with sports. It was about the LPGA, my favorite sporting organization. This post will be my second involving sports — albeit obliquely. I won’t make commentary on sports a habit since the only sports about which I could authoritatively ...
Since Donald Trump’s ascendance onto the national political stage, I’ve occasionally sworn off following the news. Last week, though, I couldn’t help but watch — and watch with utter dismay — an event which was the perfect storm of boorish ignorance buttressed by misplaced self confidence. I cringed for a variety of reasons with which ...
In my post on Mardi Gras Day, I told you about two questions people in the congregation are asked during an Episcopalian baptism service: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every ...
Some of the strategies that the Trump administration uses to make the rich richer and the poor poorer don’t get the attention they deserve. Last Friday I got a text alert on my phone from Our Walmart (http://www.ufcw.org/tag/our-walmart/). This group works to improve the lot of Walmart workers. They weren’t calling to alert me ...
