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To Be Truly Righteous: Commemorating the Prince of Soul Marvin Gaye, the "truest artist," divided soul, Motown legend and tormented "seeker who sought salvation through music" is back among us, both ethereal and palpable. This week marks what would have been his 80th birthday, the 35th anniversary of his murder by his own father, the dedication of a Commemorative Forever Stamp in his image, and the release of his long-lost, posthumous album to remind us of what we lost. The bittersweet title says it all: "You're the Man." Read more |
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Trump Comes Clean (Finally) In a startling burst of decency and remorse, a tearful Trump today offered a litany of his towering crimes - his cruel abuse of migrant children, countless lies, collusion with Russia, profiting off his position, sexual assaults, sowing of division and hate, and attacks on every institutional foundation of our democracy. “I have put a cloud over this presidency and disgraced this great country, for which I will feel ashamed for the rest of my life,” he said, before resigning immediately. Read more |
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Know Your Rights: Thugs and Monsters Are Everywhere After Trump's mocking of destitute asylum seekers, thus confirming he's "one of the worst human beings in the history of US public life," we take solace in video of immigration rights activist Bryan MacCormack valiantly blocking an attempted arrest by ICE thugs with the lethal weapon of knowing/exercising his legal rights. Calling out a bogus "warrant of arrest of alien" - aka a big fat con job - he issued the delectably stirring pronouncement, "I have no obligation to oblige by that warrant.” Read more |
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Because There Is No Difference: On Bikers, Headscarves, Haka and Unity In need of a glimmer of light, we looked to New Zealand, where in the face of a bloody cataclysm people have risen together in extraordinary strength and grace to steadfastly declare, "We are one." Their peerless leader mourned, consoled, embraced, acted; women donned headscarves; gangs performed haka; thousands guarded mosques and joined Muslim prayers; and a 95-year-old World War ll vet took four buses to attend a rally against racism because, despite all, "We care for each other." Read more |
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Death Brings On Death: Father of Sandy Hook Victim Another Apparent Suicide The toll rises: Dr. Jeremy Richman, neuroscientist, activist and father whose daughter Avielle was killed in Newtown, has died, the third evident suicide in days of a survivor of our gun carnage. The death of Richman, whose Avielle foundation researched brain health to prevent violence, coincided with the anniversary of March For Our Lives. It also lays bare a devastating, irreparable trauma needlessly endured by too many. One survivor: "He was a brokenhearted person, as we all are." Read more |
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On Cherry-Blossom and Conflict-of-Interest Motifs: The Tacky, Relentless Selling of America As we await Mueller's findings, Trump is hustling every greedy dollar he can before - please - prison or impeachment. Hence his Trump Store's new line of crappy cherry-blossom-themed mugs, shirts, soap - all bearing images of the White House and other D.C. buildings bizarrely (and illegally) slapped with “Trump Hotels” and "Trump Washington D.C.," as though America now = the mad huckster. His final, classy act: Partying at Mar-a-Lago's Lincoln dinner, he also stuck a MAGA hat on ole Abe. Read more |
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In Praise Of Jonathan Daniels and Ruby Sales: Greater Love Hath No Man Than This This week marks what would have been the 80th birthday of Jonathan Daniels, Episcopalian seminarian, civil rights activist, witness and martyr after he took the shotgun blast from an Alabama racist meant for black teenager Ruby Sales. An "ordinary man who saw great evil and responded with love," Daniels was 26. Today, Sales upholds his memory and mission as theologian and advocate. "I didn’t carry his death as a burden of guilt or as a weight," she says. "I carried it as a commitment." Read more |
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Lady Liberty Gets Probation Patricia Okoumou, the Congolese immigrant who climbed the Statue Of Liberty last July 4th to protest Trump's evil child detentions, was given five years of probation and 200 hours of community service by a New York judge who warned she'd be jailed if she undertook another protest - which she says she fully intends to do. Okoumou, who came to court with her mouth taped to symbolize the threat to free speech, said she is "not a criminal," but is "frightened by this country's moral bankruptcy.” Read more |
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The Only Hope Is To Be the Daylight Belatedly, we mourn the passing of WS Merwin, master poet, fierce defender of justice and the environment, who has died at 91 at home on Maui, where over decades he and his wife built a palm forest "as fearless and graceful (as) the power of imagination and renewal." In language spare, grave, stirring, the much-lauded Merwin explored loss, war, nature and time's passage. Always, he gave thanks for the world, "dark though it is." Edward Hirsch: "He is like a great pine tree that has fallen." Read more |
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Now, Now We Come Together "Please Dad. Come Home," wrote Omar Nabi beside a courtly photo of his 71-year-old father Daoud Nabi, the first victim of 50 named in the Christchurch massacre. Amidst global responses both evil - Trump and other racist pols - and heartfelt - an outpouring of grief, grace and vows to ban assault weapons - Australian writer Waleed Aly's searing, mournful call rings out: "We are one community...Ev erything we say to try to tear people apart (or) set them against each other has consequences." Read more |