Gregory Laxer For some time now, a towering irony has tickled my brain, though at root the topic is not at all amusing. This is the paradox that the regions of the United States that are suffering the most devastating effects of the climate crisis appear to be home to the greatest concentrations of those…
b. traven Interviewed on MSNBC’s All In, Bernie Sanders responded to Israel’s revocation of visas previously issued to Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. He suggested that if Israel does not want US Congresspeople to visit, then perhaps they can also do without the billions in aid the US sends them every year. Referring to Israel’s…
Richard Silverstein You can forget that claim you hear from Trump, Netanyahu and MBS that Iran is the greatest sponsor of state terrorism in the world. That award goes to Saudi Arabia hands down. First, it spent and wasted billions building up ISIS and arming it in order to topple the Syrian Alawite regime. It…
The author of this comment on the massacre of 11 very old Jewish citizens in their Pittsburgh synagogue is a 73 year old Pennsylvanian who lives close by Pittsburgh. I have known Bill for many years and although we disagree on some major issues like “guns,” I found his very thoughtful comments on this horrific…
Richard Silverstein OK. So you have the Iranians getting nuclear plants, technology, and uranium enrichment expertise from the Russians. As a result, some fear the Iranians may be using these as components of a nuclear program to develop nuclear weapons. You have these same people warning that if Iran gets nuclear weapons that the Saudis…
Stuart Lyle My grandparents came from Eastern Europe. Jews who escaped discrimination, but who got out long before the Nazis sought to change the face of Europe. Does that make them somehow special, “survivors?” And what about my beloved godmother who came from Stuttgart, Germany, her family literally leaving on the last train out before…
by Michael Gallagher Michael Gallagher, a coeval of Sr. Megan and a former Jesuit seminarian, served as a paratrooper during the Korean War. His book on Catholic activists, The Laws of Heaven, won the National Jesuit Book Award in theology in 1992, and his translation of Yukio Mishima’s Spring Snow was a finalist for the National Book Award in…
Don Rose Intro by b. traven This is what contributor, Don Rose, a retired Chicago political consultant has to say about the convoluted reasoning behind the selection of Merrick Garland as Obama’s nominee for the Supreme court. Other theories abound… such as this one in Salon. Senate Democrats have rushed to claim that this conservative Republican…
David and Jeanne Heidler If you’re looking for strange juxtapositions, you had a whopper this weekend. On January 16, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. In case you’re a bit fuzzy on the amendment numbers, that was the one prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage…
W.J. Astore When I was a kid, I was a stamp collector. My dad, in contrast, saved old coins. He was not a collector; he didn’t file them away in special folders. He just tossed old silver coins into a cigar box. My favorite coin of his was also the oldest one he had: a…
The Contrary Perspective 