The Maid
News is leaking about the identity of the woman who reported that IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn assaulted her. I had already formed a mental picture of a petite woman with a humble manner, [later reports-- she is a tall woman] an immigrant, a woman of color [legal resident from West Africa, possibly a refugee from [...]
Steven Hawking Won’t Go to Heaven
He would if I was God, but he doesn’t believe in it. I’ve been told that I’m going to the other place. If Steven Hawking and Carl Sagan are there, I won’t fear an eternity of boredom. I’m reading ‘The Illustrated Brief History of Time’ and it rocks. I’m not a strict materialist, more agnostic [...]
Weak and Strong
It’s just a Reuters headline, not a quote from Pope Benedict, but the Church is not usually in the business of ‘suggesting’ that people with responsibility do the right thing. Read the whole article. It’s clear why victim’s advocates are unhappy with the Pope’s directive. There’s plenty of room for delay and cover-up, the signature [...]
Siphoning off Education Funding for Cranston One Student at a Time
I have been concerned and will continue to be concerned about the proposal submitted by Cranston’s Mayor Allan Fung to start a group of charter “Mayoral Academies” in Cranston. For some background on charter schools in the US, I recommend this article by Joanne Barkin in Dissent magazine which deftly summarizes some of the salient [...]
A Problem for the Future
A nuclear power plant requires a vast investment of money and resources, it has to be decommissioned after a few decades of useful life– a process so expensive and politically unprofitable that we let plants run beyond their original expiration date, as in Vermont. Nuclear plants produce radioactive waste, some of which is deadly for [...]
Japan’s Nuclear Crisis Continues
Immediately after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, pundits were claiming it was a ‘success story’. That talking point vanished in the first days, and later ‘not as bad as Chernobyl’ began to lose ground. If the accident were one tenth the severity, it would still emerge over time as a strong argument for abandoning nuclear [...]
Jill Scott Touches the Third Rail
Jill Scott, singer and actress, recently published an opinion piece in Essence Magazine, reflecting on her feelings about interracial relationships… My new friend is handsome, African-American, intelligent and seemingly wealthy. He is an athlete, loves his momma, and is happily married to a White woman. I admit when I saw his wedding ring, I privately [...]
Have Another Cup
About thirty years ago I tried to give up coffee. ‘It’s Black Death’ a cute guy told me. And I believed him because then we were still in the mode of– ‘if it’s conventional it’s bad for you’. And all my Irish aunts drank it. And they were really old and wrinkled. Look what it [...]
Random Disaster
Two earthquakes struck southern Spain today, the worst in fifty years. The earth moves all the time, and sometimes by chance earthquake strikes in a populated area. Large chunks of stone and brick fell from the facade of a church in Lorca as a reporter for Spanish state TV was broadcasting live from the scene. [...]
Growing up in an Earthquake Zone
Pat Walling, Kmareka’s new West Coast correspondent (we’re nationwide) reports from Seattle, where Japan’s recent disasters deeply affect Americans who live in an earthquake zone, and, in many cases, have friends and relations in Japan. Thank you, Pat, for this fascinating post… Since the March 11th megaquake in Japan, all eyes have been on the [...]
Recent Comments