Category: Politics
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8. Take #1 on the New Reality
From the mid-morning of November 6th 2024, I was on a long-distance bus on the Yucatan peninsula travelling between Campeche and Palenque, in eastern Chiapas. Even though I had purchased 5 Gs of cellular data for emergency use, I promised myself a news blackout through the day. In fact, I had timed my Mexican getaway…
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7. Blackness Ten Times Black?
In the growing ominousness of the upcoming US election, I can’t resist checking the polls at least twice a day. While Trump’s abominations have smashed through every threshold of decency, the loyalty of his supporters has grown fiercer. Still, polls suggests that Trump and Harris are in a statistical dead heat. I seize upon every…
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Q. Notes on Exodus and Exile (con’d)
I recall once hearing the theme from ‘Exodus’ in a dream from which I awoke in sobs. The version I had heard could have been either of the two that were popular in 1961. Most stirring was the instrumental–– with the dual pianos of Ferrante &Teicher. It was stunning in stereo. The other was a…
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Q. Notes on Exodus and Exile (intro.)
Introduction: In April 2022, on the final day of a guided tour of Jordan, my wife and I looked down over the Jordan Valley from Mount Nebo. In the bible, the area was referred to as the land of Moab. The 800-metre hill, just a few kilometers east of the present Israeli border, was believed…
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P. Political Scraps (con’d)
As difficult as it is to be charitable to the vicious Christian right in America today––it is understandable that many white Christians long for a simpler past. Yet they seem willfully blind to any conflict of the mighty sword and the mightier dollar with old Protestant virtues. Nothing less reflects thrift and frugality than splendorous…
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P. Political Scraps (intro.)
The news of the death of Ian Smith struck me with an unexpected ambivalence. The obit in the online Guardian (no doubt prepared years in advance) stated what was well known: that Smith had been a WWII fighter pilot and a farmer before becoming leader of the ultra-conservative Rhodesian Front. Then as Prime Minister of…
Coprolites in Amber (etc.) 