Christmas Eve Eve? American families seem to have two different ways of celebrating Christmas, one in which Christmas Eve matters most and the other in which the focus is on Christmas morning. Kevin Costner even alluded to it as Crash Davis in the famous “I believe” speech from the 1988 movie “Bull Durham.” ” … …
Anyone who is frustrated with the horrific state of television news these days might be surprised to hear who I think is to blame. Ted Turner. The Mouth of the South? Are you kidding? Yes and no. For a guy who owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team, who won the America’s Cup and who started …
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose …” Actually, with apologies to Kris Kristofferson, these days freedom seems more like the right to be an asshole. I’m not sure there has ever been a time — at least in the nearly three-quarters of a century I have been alive — when more people …
RIGHT TO REFUSE VACCINE IS NOTHING MORE THAN BOGUS Read More »
Let me begin by saying I am not a genius. The illustration that begins this post is from the New York Times’ Spelling Bee game, one of the mre challenging and fascinating word games I have found on the Internet. One of the first things I do every day is Spelling Bee. It serves to …
From my Latino days. Not really, but this photo is one of the more unique ones anyone ever took of me. It was almost exactly half a lifetime ago, taken in December 1985, just after I had turned 36. It was the year of my first really successful diet. Starting at the beginning of May, …
“Suppose the streets were all on fire, the flames like tempers leaping higher. Suppose you’d lived there all your life, do you think that you would mind?” The above quote is a song lyric from 1968, from another summer of inner city rioting. The song was by Spanky and Our Gang, who had previously had …
LIFE IS TOUGH ENOUGH WITHOUT DEMONIZING THE POOR Read More »
Everyone has their favorite Christmas movies, even if too many people call something a Christmas movie just because it takes place in late December. “Die Hard” and “Die Hard 2” take place at Christmas, but neither one is about Christmas. Pretty much the same with “Home Alone.” And so many of the more recent ones …
‘LOVE ACTUALLY’ DEFINITELY MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE Read More »
It’s time to stop allowing the haters to set the terms of the debate. Republicans are trying to make it more difficult for people who don’t vote their way — particularly minorities — to vote at all. Particularly in Southern states, the goal is to repress African-American voting, because they are the group that votes …
When I was in my early teens, I wasn’t nearly as interested in World War II as I could have been. Correct that — should have been. My dad was a veteran infantryman in the Army and my birth father was a sonarman in the Navy. Both were young veterans. Norman Rappaport was 19 when …
It was 50 years ago this coming April. For some reason, I was writing a great deal of poetry in 1972 and ’73. They were two pretty depressing years in my life. My first real love relationship had ended in late 1970, and until I started dating the woman who would become my first wife …
A BRIEF GLANCE FROM AGE 72 to a 22-YEAR-OLD IN 1972 Read More »
