Recent Commentaries

Featured image for “For Family and Country”
For Family and Country
Rain Delay. Hope to be back soon. (The original title of this piece was, It’s Citizenship, Stupid! But Sister Mary Aloysius would never allow me to suggest anyone was stupid.) In 2017, President Donald Trump was on his way from the White House to Texas when he told a reporters this: “I think the press makes me more uncivil than...
Read More
January 29, 2024
What Really Matters
Embed from Getty Images In the 1950s, a junior senator from Wisconsin blanketed America with lies and conspiracies. The “Red Scare” he created led millions to believe that communists had infiltrated the federal government, and he persecuted those who stood up for the Constitution. The cycle repeats with a former president who continues to lie and spread conspiracies as easily...
Read More
January 25, 2024
Featured image for “What Matters”
What Matters
Tomorrow, New Hampshire voters go to the polls for the first primary of the season where Republican voters appear poised to select front-runner and former president, Donald Trump, as the party’s candidate for a second term in the highest office in the federal government. This is a good time to take a clear, hard look at what matters. The New...
Read More
January 22, 2024
Featured image for “The Orange Jesus”
The Orange Jesus
“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”—The First Commandment In last week’s caucus, the good, decent, hardworking people of Iowa overwhelming supported Donald Trump. Evangelicals make up 55 percent of supporters. Their conversion began when they leaned away from the holy Bible to the scriptures of Donald Trump. It began when they believed the lies the former president told...
Read More
January 19, 2024
Featured image for “<em>This</em> is What Makes America Great”
This is What Makes America Great
With divided Americans talking past one another, this is a good time to remember what really makes America great. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” — Declaration of Independence Common Sense,...
Read More
January 12, 2024
Stop Sleepwalking and Start Fighting!
Embed from Getty Images Alarm bells go off on every page of former Congresswoman Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath and Honor,” . . . every page. At New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College last Friday, Cheney continued to press her message to primary voters. “Tell the world who we are with your vote. Tell them that we are a good and a great...
Read More
January 9, 2024
Words Matter
Embed from Getty Images It begins like this: Bit by little bit, misleading words grow in shadows where they are picked up and spread. Bit by bit, false conspiracies are created and multiplied. Lies spread, becoming a wildfire of hate from those who feel isolated, threatened, fearful. According to a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll,  » Read more about: Words Matter...
Read More
January 5, 2024
Featured image for “Resolutions”
Resolutions
Everybody’s got ’em, and everyone is sincere until they break ’em. Sunday’s New York Times had a fascinating story about how to write an opinion piece with one difference. They taught kids, seven to seventeen, how to write an opinion and then asked them to submit their opinions in 100 words or less. A few rules: “Choose a topic you...
Read More
January 3, 2024
Featured image for “What’s Happened to America’s Morality?”
What’s Happened to America’s Morality?
What a way to end the year. The erosion of America’s moral integrity is overwhelming. Entitlement has overtaken personal responsibility. Meanness has overwhelmed kindness. And hatred has crushed tolerance. Many of today’s “leaders” place self-interest above public interest. They role model viciousness and lies instead of kindness and facts. They believe that the best way to influence the public forum...
Read More
December 29, 2023
Featured image for “A New Hope”
A New Hope
With America and the world mired in chaos and conflict, a symbol of hope rises like a phoenix at Notre Dame Cathedral after a fire nearly destroyed the 860-year-old limestone landmark. In 860 years, Notre Dame has survived the War of the Roses, and witnessed the Russo-Turkish War, the Napoleonic and Yugoslav Wars, the Hundred Years’ War (116 years), World...
Read More
December 24, 2023