Blog
I have bad news, good news and more bad news. Also an apology. The initial bad news: The COVID-19 death toll of Americans stands at 124,000. The good news: Last Sunday, American daily deaths dropped to 275. More bad news: Daily deaths rose to 833 on Tuesday and 766 Wednesday. Yesterday, Johns Hopkins University charted…
The Boat sits in drydock at Clement and Fifth Avenue far from the waterfront. Its captain is giving up the helm. But someday—soon, I hope—it will set sail as it has for 38 years. Jesse and Roberta Fink opened the Toy Boat Dessert Café in 1982. Carolyn and I had been living in San Francisco…
COVID-19 has taken its toll. Now, people are getting back to some familiar routines from working to dining out. But new opening-up regulations don’t compel us to do so. Witness my haircut. I, too, was getting scraggly. I had my last haircut on March 12. My particularly oily hair badly needed trimming. I can’t see…
A Minneapolis cop kneels on the neck of a black man, George Floyd. Peaceful protestors kneel on pavement. An unidentified young African-American woman carries an armload of bras out of Victoria’s Secret. How do we make sense of these images? Last Saturday, my friend Ira asked: Doesn’t Judaism have anything to offer about the racism…
Two-and-a-half-year-old Sadie, granddaughter of my friends Les and Sheila, lives in Singapore. Recently, she had a run-in with a monkey. It deserves our attention. Sadie lives in a ground-floor apartment with a patio abutting a rainforest. The family was outside, Sadie holding a banana. A monkey snatched it. It was a bit upsetting. This could…
I’m a citizen of the United States of America but have trouble defining United. As—when—the coronavirus pandemic winds down, how will Americans define the word? During Congregation Sherith Israel’s Zoom Shabbat service last Friday night, Rabbi Jessica Graf asked what will our country be like post-COVID-19. It’s a good bet we’ll be facing a great…
You probably saw or heard the news. America’s two highest officials spurned the guidelines they issued to reduce the spread of coronavirus. What message are they sending us? Tuesday, Vice President Pence visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The clinic has a set policy: Everyone wears a mask. Mr. Pence didn’t. His excuse: He’s…
Recent protests regarding shelter-in-place regulations call to mind a public service TV campaign about traffic safety that ran in New York City many decades ago. It’s worth considering. The concept is critical because most Americans have encountered major disruptions to their lives to slow the spread of COVID-19. Regulations exact a harsh cost but…