Felled by ageism, Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 campaign for U. S. President, and the country lost one of its greatest leaders. A gracious man, he put the nation above his ambition and ended Democratic anxiety about his ability to defeat Donald Trump.  On the upside, his decision

I threw a DVD  of “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” into my player last night.  I needed a touch of innocence to block out the television news.  Hard to accept but the real world had grown more fantastical, dark, and insane, than makebelieve. In the episode I selected,

We know how it feels…to be a non-being, confined in a cage..to always be known by the name of our father, brother or husband, and have no identity of our own.  This lament from an Afghan girl could be chiseled on the gravestones of most women throughout human history.  Female oppr