Last month, I wrote about Elaine Harmon who was one of many women who served in the Women Air Force Service Pilots, (WASP) during World War II. Thirty-eight of them died in service to their country. Despite Harmon’s wishes to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, along with other service veterans and their spouses, Arlington maintains that a technicality in...

The Fortune Cookie is a desperately funny Billy Wilder film about an equally desperate con man by the name of “whiplash” Willy, a lawyer (brilliantly played by Walter Matthau), and his schnook brother-in-law, (the equally brilliant Jack Lemmon). Lemmon is a TV cameraman who is accidentally sidelined by a football player while covering a game. After Gingrich learns from his...

Just when you thought the Republican race for the presidential nomination could not possibly get embarrassingly worse, it does. Last night, billionaire huckster Donald Trump had already won 7 of 12 state primaries and looked to increase his lead before the night was over. Forty-eight hours earlier he was interviewed on CNN’s State of the Union (Feb. 28), by Jake...

While Thomas Jefferson has been revered as perhaps the greatest literary force of all American presidents, by virtue of  having written the Declaration of Independence, I connect more closely with the words and thoughts of Abraham Lincoln owing to his singular range: his address at Cooper Union, Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, as well as his second inaugural address. Lincoln’s clarity...

Okay, I missed Lincoln’s birthday on Friday, but this is good. In light of the fiery attacks GOP candidates have thrown at each other, it’s interesting to consider a question presented by FlackCheck.org, the political literacy site: Could Lincoln be elected today if his opponents used today’s political tactics? The concept was developed into a 2012 social studies lesson plan...

(Note: This commentary was written and posted in January, 2016. It was based on then-candidate Trump’s statement of December 7, 2015, calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” as pointed out in the 12th paragraph, below. Comments to this post are now closed.)...

13 Hours, a feature-length movie about the 2012 terrorist incident in Benghazi, Libya begins with a title card: “This is the true story you were never told…” Movies are different from documentaries. While a documentary aspires to offer the most accurate account possible of people and events, a movie works to tell the essential truth in a format that allows...

In 1925 and ’26, Adolf Hitler published (in two parts, no less) an autobiography of sorts. While the title translates as “My Struggle,” the real substance behind the work has more to do with Hitler’s political ideology than anything else. His central thesis being “the Jewish peril,” Hitler believed in a Jewish conspiracy to expand global leadership. While the question...

Since the attacks in Paris more than a week ago, so much of the political talk has centered on radical Muslims. (Although some leave the word “radical” out of the discussion). Before a packed crowd on Saturday (Nov. 21) in Birmingham, Alabama, GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said, “I want surveillance of certain mosques, O.K.?” Earlier in the week, in...

That’s the Japanese word for survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The word translates as “explosion-affected people.” Rarely have I listened to such a compelling personal story. It’s the story of Setsuko Thurlow, a hibakusha, who, at just 13-years-old became a victim of war. Today, she is a Peace Ambassador of the United Nations University of Peace...