By DENNIS HARROD Ken Lindblom is hoping no one throws a brick through his window. He has no reason to think anybody will, but when you’re a small-town newspaper editor, people sometimes take exception to strong opinions. And when you run stories with headlines such as “The Trump Dictatorship Has Begun,” tempers might flare. Since …
By DENNIS HARROD I had an opportunity today to do what I always say I will do. But I didn’t do it. After nearly two hours in the rain at the Hands Off rally in Hamilton, N.Y. April 5, I was walking back to where I’d parked a couple of blocks away. As I walked …
By DENNIS HARROD “For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.” From the Gospel of Matthew Across the globe, more than 43 million people are refugees, people forced to flee their own country. Their future …
By JIM McKEEVER The blue and yellow flags of Ukraine that flew so proudly in our communities last year have faded. Many have disappeared from front porches, yards and windows. I guess we’re tired of reading and hearing about the war, more than a year after Vladimir Putin invaded the sovereign nation next door. (Perhaps …
Editor’s note: Five additional portraits are below McLaughlin’s essay. By BILL McLAUGHLIN Many years ago while working on environmental issues and getting quite angry at the political and corporate entities that were contaminating the air and groundwater in the rural area where I was living, an experienced activist and dear friend gave me some advice …
By MIKE DONOHUE I spend a lot of time grousing like the elderly Irish curmudgeon I am, but the truth is I’m a pretty happy guy. There are really only a few things in life I hate — discrimination, injustice, and baking Christmas cookies. The first are givens, but the cookies need a bit of …
By JIM McKEEVER If you had the opportunity to provide comfort to a child, or a family, sleeping outside in the cold, you’d do whatever you could, right? It’s what any decent human being would do. Not the United States Border Patrol. Here’s what’s been happening for weeks now at the US-Mexico border in Friendship …
By JIM McKEEVER I heard many stories during a recent “water drop” in the desert with Border Kindness, a not-for-profit humanitarian aid organization in southern California. One in particular told by a fellow volunteer will stay with me. The story marked the beginning of the 34-year-old man’s transformation a quarter-century ago. As a young boy …
By JIM McKEEVER If life seems more than a little unsettled these days, here’s one thing you can control. We’re running out of time, so here’s the plan: Put something in writing that epitomizes your life, your world view, your beliefs — a mantra, of sorts — for your family, friends, loved ones, even people …
By JIM McKEEVER I won’t give you their names, but names shouldn’t matter anyway. They are voices at the other end of a phone call, faceless men ages 18 to 48, who tell me their stories in 60, 90 minutes. We say good-bye, I wish them luck and I have no idea what happens to …
Sense of Decency 