My ancient history professor, Martin Ostwald, taught me all about Athens in the golden age, the fifth century B.C. – and more. Somehow he circled back to me early in the year 2024 A.D. His seminar of four students met once a week, Thursday afternoons, for time travel that raced like chariots. Famous in his […]

I’m not here to join the mockery of Alabama for declaring that embryos are children – and, therefore, in vitro fertilization clinics must protect them forever. On the contrary, I admire its honesty. Many states have effectively banned abortions, arguing that destroying an embryo amounts to baby killing. Yet they look the other way when […]

“Corporate crises consultants” [yes, there are such creatures] have patented a formula allowing their wrongdoing clients to champion reform while simultaneously killing it. A classic case is now unfolding around last year’s derailment of a 2-mile-long Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, OH. The community’s air, soil, water and people suffered a massive spill […]

Donald Trump has been outrageously silent about the brutal murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. No, correct that. Silence would have been outrageous. Comparing himself to the slain hero is beyond outrageous. Trump, and his supporters, have had the audacity to compare Trump’s indictment by four grand juries to the imprisonment and death of […]

If you believed that the Republicans in Congress couldn’t sink any lower, recent events have proved you sadly mistaken. House Speaker Mike Johnson, in his latest displays of subservience to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, has made his most wretched predecessors seem like statesmen and patriots. For the first time ever in America, a branch […]