By DENNIS HARROD A famous cartoon shows Robespierre about to execute the executioner on the guillotine. The implication is that Robespierre and his colleagues of the French Revolution have now executed everyone, and only the executioner remains. An inscription says “Here lies all of France.” I thought of that image this morning as I read …
By JIM McKEEVER Our hurry-up society provides plenty of tests of civility and decency — mundane, everyday experiences and encounters that reveal a great deal about who we are as individuals and as a community. Coffee shop lines. Grocery store shopping carts. Red lights and stop signs. How are we doing? That’s hard to quantify. …
By JIM McKEEVER The woman eases herself into a chair across from a man in the waiting room, sets her walker aside and goes into detail about her many surgeries. “I’ve been cut 24 times,” she says, launching into a laundry list of diseases, including diabetes, renal failure, fibromyalgia. She says she is 57, grew …
By JIM McKEEVER Mexicans can be heroes again. A U.S. District Court judge last week overturned a 2021 U.S. Customs and Border Protection policy that had stopped Mexicans from crossing the border to donate plasma. In May 2021, I noticed long lines outside the three plasma donation centers within a few hundred yards of the …
By MIKE DONOHUE In the days since the Uvalde massacre, there have been more questions than ever as to why America has more gun violence than anywhere else. Having worked for 35 years as a professional treating alcoholics/drug addicts, I see some parallels between the rise in mass shootings and the opioid epidemic. Per …
By JIM McKEEVER For the past few months — has it been longer? — I’ve half-jokingly said that we should change the name of this website to “Sense of Despair.” It pretty much sums up where many of us have been lately, whether it’s the pandemic that won’t go away, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lies …
By JIM McKEEVER We are heartbroken. News reports, photos and video of the suffering in Ukraine, images of innocent families dead on the ground, have infuriated us, sparked us to act. We send money, food, supplies, weapons. We attend rallies to show solidarity with Ukraine and speak out against Vladimir Putin’s cruel war. America’s empathy …
By JOHN GRAU Funny what social distancing does for the view. After 18 months of pandemic emergency — with its shutdowns, quarantines, masks, hand sanitizers, panic buying, online shopping, online appointments, online gatherings, as well as no dining out, no going to the movies, no attending church, no concerts, no theater and no unnecessary travel …
Debbie Urbanski writes with raw honesty about the choices we make as individuals and as a species. She examines the vulnerability of a woman who discovers she has inherited a BRCA1 breast cancer mutation (herself) and the fate of a planet whose inhabitants continue to make choices that are not sustainable. And she does all …
By ANA MORLEY By the summer of 2020, America seemed to be roiling in escalated conflict after an unrelenting Spring of Coronavirus sacrifices. From the Friday the 13th shutdowns in March, the pre-pandemic planning failures, crisis healthcare responses, sluggish research, inconsistent governmental policy decisions to the widespread commercial and educational interruptions, there seemed to be …
Sense of Decency 