His public defender said my testimony had saved his client from the death penalty.  I’d worked with the prisoner in an ex-offenders program while I was in public life.  His first incarceration was for theft. When he came to the program, I  found him personable and recommended tha

The day after Joe Biden’s inauguration, a friend emailed me a question. “What should I make of this,” she wrote. Her note included the remarks of a woman she’d known most of her life and who, decades earlier, had served as Maid of Honor at her wedding. Having assumed they were

A friend at the retirement center sat down beside me one afternoon in the temporary lounge that management had arranged, its chairs set 6 feet apart.  It’s a place where residents are supposed to carry on conversations while masked. Despite her face covering, I heard a sigh as she

The dividing line between church and state required by our Constitution is as fragile as a dry leaf. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, for example, took a righteous tone against Democrats who dared question Amy Coney Barrett’s brand of Catholicism during her confirmation hearings for

The Biden-Trump election is over but feelings remain high.  Donald Trump diehards believe the President’s defeat will be reversed in the courts. Experts disagree. Even members of his family are urging Trump to concede.  Even so, some of my Facebook friends continue to lay out argu

Like many of my friends, the days following the 2020 election left me in a stupor. Biden’s victory was convincing, but not sweeping.  It shook my belief that Donald Trump was an aberration, a stumble as the nation struggles to find its way in a world of everchanging technology, thr

When did hungry people decide half a loaf wasn’t good enough? I’m speaking metaphorically, of course, referring to the “double haters,” that Donald Trump referred to in 2016. These were disillusioned people who looked for a change and didn’t think it was coming fast enough.

Call me a masochist, but every morning I open my computer to trawl for news.  Reliably, the headlines capture the worst of times: Joe Biden’s campaign files have been hacked; rattlesnakes bite two Yosemite hikers; west coast fires make the air unbreathable… One columnist expresse

Don’t get me wrong. I admire House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She knows how to crack a whip over her Democratic caucus to lead the country forward. The job, I imagine, invites plenty of frown line, but she appears to have gone a tad too far with the Botox in her effort to appear perpetua

Having lived through the Asian flu epidemic in the late 1950s, I’m pretty sure the coronavirus will eventually wend its way out of our system. For one thing, science knows a good deal more about how to mount a viral defense than in those earlier days. A vaccine may arrive sooner rat