Recent Respect Commentaries

Featured image for “. . . Divided We Fall”
. . . Divided We Fall
Sherlock Holmes had just received a message from London informing him that Professor Moriarty’s gang had been captured. But “the Napoleon of crime,” as Holmes described, had escaped. Over weeks, the great detective had successfully tracked Moriarty to Switzerland. And there, above the roiling falls of Reichenback, the final combat took place. Locked in each other’s arms, Holmes and Moriarty...
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March 7, 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...
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January 9, 2024
Are We Living Up to the Dream?
Embed from Getty Images It’s been 60 years since Dr. King spoke to 250,000 supporters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on a warm August afternoon in 1963. King’s stirring words about character, however, were improvised not written. Standing close to the civil rights leader, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson whispered, “Tell ‘em about ‘the dream,’ Martin.” I have a...
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September 1, 2023
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It’s Time.
In 1940, journalist Edward R. Murrow stood in a church in England while the country endured German bombers night after night. Inside the church was a crudely written sign which read, “If your knees knock, kneel on them.” It’s time for Americans to get up off their knees and fight. Like a hamster on a wheel, we’ve become stuck going...
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May 16, 2023
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Healing America’s Pain
Much of the country is lost . . . painfully lost. Overwhelmed by suspicion and fear, a terrible ugliness pervades our times. Some feel so threatened by anyone who knocks on their door or comes up their driveway, that they answer with a gun. Chained to their own fears, they stare at the dark shadows of their self-imposed isolation, trusting...
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April 28, 2023
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April 15, 1947
At the end of the month, 30 teams will step out of the dugout to begin another season of Major League Baseball. Thirty rookies are among them. Seventy-six years ago, a rookie stepped out of the dugout and into history. His name was Jack Roosevelt Robinson. In a conversation for my book, What Do You Stand For? documentarian Ken Burns...
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March 7, 2023
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Lessons From Ukraine
Think about this. Because of Putin’s war against Ukraine, millions of Ukrainian men, women, and children are enduring the harshest conditions imaginable: nightly bombing; an absence of light, heat and water. Ukraine’s health system cannot keep up with the sick and injured. Schools have closed in much of the country. Despite help from European and Western allies, life in Ukraine...
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February 24, 2023
Featured image for “From Humanity to Inanity”
From Humanity to Inanity
As the death toll rises after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Turkey and Syria, one dramatic story—a miracle, really—took our collective breaths away. Amid the rubble and the bodies in the town of Jinderis in northern Syrian, rescue workers recovered a baby which doctors believe was only 3 hours old. With the umbilical cord still attached, the mother had...
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February 10, 2023
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George Washington’s Rules of Civility
With offensive slurs and threats thrown around, Friday’s election of a House speaker was another example of a lack of civility in America. But our first president, George Washington didn’t have the best of dispositions either. He had a reputation for “tumultuous passions that accompany greatness,” Gouverneur Morris, one of the Founding Fathers, noted of Washington. The Latin word civilis...
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January 10, 2023
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Remembering 2022
“Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!” —insurrectionist shouts during the attack of the U.S Capitol on January 6th. “We don’t want you to think of Lexi as just a number. She was intelligent, compassionate, and athletic. She was quiet, shy unless she had a point to make.” —Kimberly Rubio, mother of Lexi Rubio—one of 21 killed in a school shooting...
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December 30, 2022

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