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According to some people, what time of day you shower says a lot—maybe everything—about you. Such assumptions lead to dangerous politics. Blue-collar workers generally shower at the end of a sweaty day. White- (or other-color-) collar workers often shower in the morning to be fresh for the office—if they go to one—or other location. But…
My 75-year-old wife Carolyn returned from her fourth Burning Man. Shocked? Here’s the full picture. Carolyn—Playa name DramaQueen—loves the festival, which draws 60,000–70,000 people to the desert three hours north of Reno. She first went in 2018. She’d known about Burning Man since its early days at San Francisco’s Baker Beach. “Also, I’d been a…
The recent GOP debate produced many Donald Trump moments without Trump. More heat than light revealed the GOP lacks something important. Take former VP Mike Pence. Like Trump, he never served in the military. Had he completed Infantry Officer Candidate School (specifics in a moment), he might have defined leadership more wisely. Pence advocates a federal abortion…
Given the nation’s political turmoil, Rabbinic thinking can shed light on “loose construction” of the Constitution. A personal experience reinforced that concept. In 1998, I traveled to Israel with a group from New York. On the way to our hotel, we stopped at Mount Scopus for a sweeping view of Jerusalem. It struck me that…
A stroll down memory lane two weeks ago encouraged me to take another last Sunday to parts of San Francisco I love. Carolyn was attending a daylong workshop by the casting director of the CBS soap opera, “The Bold and the Beautiful.” So I took a one-block walk to the Muni stop at California and…
Last Sunday, Carolyn and I bid two farewells. In only one case had someone died. That someone was Tina Turner, who died last May. We attended Tina: The Tina Turner Musical at the Golden Gate Theater. It provided an opportunity to say goodbye to a woman whose music, and pluck, topped the charts. Tina first opened in London’s…
Donald Trump was just indicted on four counts regarding attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Yet he remains the heavy favorite for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination. A pollster and a novelist offer insights. On Tuesday, GOP pollster Frank Luntz told Dana Bash on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that conservative, faith-based Iowa voters “like Donald…
The media have speculated about the usual suspects regarding Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate. But let’s not overlook lesser-knowns heading under-the-radar conservative groups. Here are their selling points they provided in recent interviews. Marry Anne Cross, Make America Christian Again. “America must be Christian in more than name only. The Founding Fathers—the Mothers were busy rearing children,…
Months ago, Disney+ hyped season 3 of the Star Wars-related “The Mandalorian.” A thousand people from 20 countries read my 2021 post, “The Mandalorian and the Jews.” Season 3’s Jewish connections were even stronger. “The Way” of the Mandalorians suggests Jewish law, Halacha—the way of going. Maimonides writes about the “way of the Lord” in his Mishneh Torah. The…
Mark Twain once wrote, “The report of my death is greatly exaggerated.” I’d apply that to San Francisco. Much has been reported about San Francisco spiraling downward in a “doom loop.” No question, the pandemic took its toll. A bunch of the workforce moved away, schools closed, stores shut. But I’d add to Yankees Hall…