'Far Beyond the Stars' is more relevant today than when it was first...
When I have had enough, enough of the antics of the current occupant of the Oval Office, enough of the cowardice of his Republican enablers, and enough of the media’s hunger for Democratic...
View Article'When you blow that kind of dog whistle, animals come out'
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called out Donald Trump’s rhetoric early last week in response to the mass shooting in El Paso:"As the leader of our country, I implore the president to set a better,...
View ArticlePlanned Parenthood just said ‘No’
Tina was a hair stylist that cut my hair every five weeks when I lived in California. A divorced mother of two teenagers, she was a member of the working poor and made enough to disqualify her from...
View ArticleSugar: The addiction we don't discuss
America is in the middle of an obesity crisis:According to the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 18.5 percent of children and 39.6 percent of adults had obesity in...
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Rachel Maddow's 'Blowout' exposes the corruption at the core of the fossil...
My late husband’s family is from Oklahoma: His father came from Illinois, and his mother from Texas. They met in the early days of the state’s history. And while Vida Mae and Justus brought my husband...
View ArticleThe violation of Katie Hill
On Sunday, the current occupant of the Oval Office was loudly booed while attending game five of the World Series in Washington, DC. By Monday, the beltway pundits were up in arms over Americans who...
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What Brenda Wineapple's 'The Impeachers' can teach us about Trump
Most histories of the Civil War end at Appomattox. Some may include a few words about Gen. Johnston’s surrender to Gen. Sherman, but most end either at Appomattox or with the assassination of President...
View ArticleBirds of a feather: Why Trump wants to commute Rod Blagojevich's sentence
It’s the hair. Obviously.What man who requires an elaborate arrangement of dyed, styled, and sprayed strands of hair, would not want to have his own hairbrush treated like the nuclear football? A...
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Review of 'A Problem from Hell': America and the Age of Genocide
On March 14, 1921, a 24-year-old Armenian named Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated the retired interior minister of Turkey, Mehmed Talaat. It was Talaat who determined and then administered the most...
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The women of 2019
Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to walk into a voting booth and pull the lever. So it is fitting to close out this year by looking at the...
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'Home Now': Somali refugees forge new lives and transform a dying Maine town
When I moved from Chicago to San Francisco in 1973, I was struck by how many of my new friends were also migrants from other states. A native-born Californian was a rarity in those days. Many years...
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Missouri Republican proposes legislation that would make it legal to lock up...
There is a move underway in Missouri to not just ban certain books and library activities, but to jail the librarians who permit them. The Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act, HB 2044, would...
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