Recent Citizenship Commentaries

Featured image for “Stand Up”
Stand Up
We are living in an age of animosity that has momentarily killed our faith in each other. If I’m repeating a refrain from past commentaries, so be it. We need to be reminded of the cancer that is infecting America’s soul—anger that leads to hate, hate to violence and a helplessness that cries out for healing. Every now and then...
Read More
October 5, 2021
Featured image for “We Can Do This”
We Can Do This
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.  —Robert Kennedy Before a campaign appearance in Indianapolis, Indiana, Sen. Robert Kennedy had just learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.. The crowd he was planning to address had not yet...
Read More
September 14, 2021
Featured image for “The Questions We Need to Ask Ourselves”
The Questions We Need to Ask Ourselves
“How can we love our country and not love our countrymen? And loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they’re sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory.” —Ronald Reagan Disinformation, disfunction, violence, a deadly virus, vaccination deniers, climate deniers, wildfires, hurricanes, floods....
Read More
September 7, 2021
Featured image for “It Seems Fitting”
It Seems Fitting
“We cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first. We can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.” – John F. Kennedy With all the turbulence in the world, it seems fitting that American’s are once again looking to the stars. Only this time, it’s through the eyes of citizen astronauts. I remember getting...
Read More
July 21, 2021
Entitlement
Entitlement is the new justification where people behave badly believing they can pretty much do whatever they want by claiming… “It’s my right to (fill in the blank).” They feel entitled to refuse to wear masks and social distance (even though federal guidelines are intended to protect themselves and others). They feel entitled to punch anyone in the face who...
Read More
June 23, 2021
Featured image for “Why We Are All So Mad”
Why We Are All So Mad
Social division, racial division, political division, economic division, lies, rage, violence. After another mass shooting, California Governor Gavin Newson said, “What the hell is going on in the United States of America? What the hell is wrong with us?” Before all this rage and violence exploded, too many were living lives of quiet desperation – desperate to be heard, desperate...
Read More
May 28, 2021
Featured image for “Real Problem, One Real Solution”
Real Problem, One Real Solution
In the ’70s film, The Graduate, young Benjamin Braddock is attending a celebratory party arranged by his parents when he is pulled to the side by a business friend of the family. The older man puts his arm around Ben, then lowers his voice before distilling his business wisdom into one word: Plastics. Plastics may have been the best career...
Read More
May 14, 2021
Featured image for “Meet in The Middle”
Meet in The Middle
I didn’t know much about Tyler Perry before Sunday’s Academy Award event. I sure know a lot more now. Last Sunday, Perry was the recipient of the Gene Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The honor is only periodically given to an “individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.” And Perry more than qualified. His...
Read More
April 28, 2021
What’s the Truth About Georgia’s New Election Law?
Embed from Getty Images “I’m telling you the truth about this bill,” Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp tells Atlanta’s NPR affiliate. “It expands access.” You can fool all the people some of the time… “After the November election last year, I knew,” Kemp said, “like so many of you, that significant reforms to our state elections were needed.” And some of...
Read More
April 7, 2021
Featured image for “What Will it Take?”
What Will it Take?
What will it take for some Americans to stop believing the false narrative that Democrats want to abolish the Second Amendment? In 1996, the Dunblane primary school shooting left 16 fifth and sixth graders and the teacher that tried to protect them, dead. The public outcry was loud and long. In 1997, UK’s prime minister, John Major, passed the Firearms...
Read More
March 26, 2021