Whitewashing History

Republicans in the North Carolina House rammed through a bill saying schools shouldn’t teach any “concepts” that cause students to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress.” Will some students feel “discomfort” when they learn that White Southerners introduced slavery to America, started a Civil War to protect slavery, denied Black…

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A Better Road

It used to be when we had a primary here in North Carolina and no candidate won 50% of the vote there was a runoff between the top 2 candidates. Politicians frowned on runoffs, changed the rule: If a candidate got 40% of the vote, and led, he won. Then politicians changed the rule again:…

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Parsing Words, Stepping Carefully

Donald Trump’s in the crosshairs of the district attorney in New York, the district attorney in Atlanta, and a special prosecutor in Washington. Last week moving a step closer to indicting Trump the Manhattan D.A. asked Trump to testify in front of a grand jury. Does he have a case? Or is he fueling a…

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A Reason for Hope

It was like traveling back in time, watching John Sebastian’s folk music documentary on PBS: An old black and white video of Judy Collins singing Turn, Turn, Turn, another video of Harry Belafonte crooning Jamaica Farwell, Trini Lopez singing If I Had a Hammer. Old songs rolled on: Where have all the flowers gone, Michael…

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Two Enemies

During the Cold War America had one powerful enemy: The USSR. After the Cold War we faced no powerful enemies. Three decades later China started upping its nuclear arsenal, allied with Putin, Putin started a war. Fearing Russia, Germany started to arm. Fearing China, Japan started to arm. About the only thing Biden and Republicans…

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Kindness

In America these days you see wokeness, political wars, media howling, crime soaring – and shake your head, wondering, Where did we go wrong? The other night my wife told me to watch David Muir’s news broadcast from the day before – and I got a surprise: A rail-thin, eighty-year-old, wobbly-legged man’s rent went up…

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Retribution

On stage, standing at a podium, staring at a battalion of supporters, Trump purred, ‘I am your retribution.’ He then mocked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, taking retribution, promised more retribution, ‘I will totally obliterate the deep state.’ No one asked why he didn’t do that when he was sitting in the Oval Office. Ron DeSantis…

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Jekyll and Hyde

“I hate him” – Trump – “passionately.” Put yourself in Donald Trump’s shoes: Did he feel betrayed when he read Tucker Carlson’s saying ‘I hate him’? He’d helped Carlson. Carlson had cheered him. Then Dominion sued Fox News and Carlson’s text message telling coworkers he hated Trump landed in a courtroom. On election night three…

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A Political Dance…

A young girl walking to a grocery store at night was raped at knife point; pregnant, back in the 1960s, she went to get an illegal abortion, stared at a blood-stained table, left – gave birth to her daughter, put her up for adoption. Nineteen years later the daughter – Rebecca Kiessling – met her…

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A Trial

Suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, to prove Fox knew Trump’s claims ‘the election was stolen’ weren’t true, Dominion Voting Systems released Fox TV stars’ emails and text messages. Tucker Carlson texted Laura Ingraham: “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.” Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one…

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