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News, Spin

Assess, then Rouse the Crickets

Frescoe at Pompeii showing a parrot pulling a chariot driven by a cricket

This frescoe at Pompeii shows a parrot pulling a chariot driven by a cricket. Credit Library of Congress

2 of 2. See 1. One of the most disturbing bits about President Trump’s rapid destaffing and defunding of federal agencies and programs is the silence. What about cable news channels and social media, they won’t shut up about it, you ask. What about the growing street protests and overflowing town hall meetings, whether Republican […]

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News, Spin

Woke Up and Smell the Coffee

1987 prestamped postcard showing some drafters of the Constitution

The final draft of this 1987 prestamped postcard depicts some drafters of the U.S. Constitution meeting in Philadelphia in 1797. From left are George Mason, Gouveneur Morris, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Charles C. Pickney.

1 of 2. See 2. So many times in so many, many years, we are captivated by news from Washington yet breathe relief that as dramatic as it is, it doesn’t hit all that close. Not this year, oh boy. U.S. colleges and universities in recent weeks got the same memos, more or less literally. […]

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News, Spin

Jews Stopped Being White This Year

Favorite yarmulke skullcap and tallit prayer shawl
The shawl is a religious tool, for prayers. The skullcap is more cultural. A North Carolina rabbi gave me the yarmulke for my big sister's funeral in 2021; it was left over from the bar mitzvah of a budding tennis player. The tallit is more or less handmade. I bought the cloth at a fabric store in Fort Smith in the late 1970s, then the Stanford Hillel director taught me how to tie the fringes. "Jewish macramé," the rabbi called it.

This Is Good for the Jews At dusk on Halloween, in the vicinity of 34 years ago, about 1990, my cat B.C. and I happened to be looking out my front window, and she jumped, leaving the window for mid-floor. I saw a young man halfway up the Little Rock apartment’s sidewalk in SS Gestapo […]

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Body, Home, Street

Of Four Minds on Resistance

Pickets illustration by Ceci Davidson, 1990
Pickets, Copyright 1990 Ceci Davidson

Last week a dozen or so members of area union locals gathered for the November meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Labor Council. The discussion was about a 2025 we can barely predict, one led by a Republican ticket dedicated in public remarks to a melding of dictatorship and anarchy that appeals this month to 49.83 […]

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Sides

Friday Night Re-Pabst

4 empty beer bottles, each a different color
Photo by George Chernilevsky, public domain, Wikimedia Commons

DIY Michelada Is Superior Several years ago I came across a curious cookbook. It comprised workable, simple and healthy vegan recipes but as a parody of a diet book, The Taco Cleanse: The Tortilla-Based Diet Proven to Change Your Life. Its authors — Wes Allison, Stephanie Bogdanich, Molly Frisinger and Jessica Morris — are based […]

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Holiday Cuisine Main Courses

Clean Beans

Nearly all the ingredients for Clean Beans in a 2-quart Dutch oven
Nearly all the ingredients for Clean Beans in a 2-quart Dutch oven

The goal for Memorial Day extending to the Fourth of July this year was a recipe for baked beans tasting as I remember Mom opening a can or two and heating them, but also vegan and zero to low oil. The baked beans of yesterday not to mention today had bacon or shreds of regular […]