G.O.P. TO TRUMP—SEE YA 

In her Republican response to the State of the Union Tuesday night, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders took dead aim at President Joseph Biden’s age—he’s 80. “It’s time for a new generation in Washington.” Biden was not her only target. Sanders, Donald Trump’s press secretary for two years, who slammed the media for “fake news,”…

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A BLUE VETERANS DAY SALUTE 

Liberals and progressives in deep-blue San Francisco display strong anti-war sentiments. That’s good. War is bad. But many ignore Veterans Day. That does a deep disservice to our past and present military personnel. Veterans Day traces its roots to November 11, 1918. An armistice ended the Great War. Armistice Day soon became a national holiday.…

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COVID, TRAVEL AND LUCK

Thanks to Covid-19, Carolyn and I hadn’t seen our eldest son Seth in more than two-and-a-half years. Despite Omicron, we flew to the Seattle area to visit. There’s a lesson here. We all took precautions, isolating ourselves before the trip. Seth works from home for a major video game company. Carolyn and I avoided other…

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S.F. CRIME AND B.S.

Ten days ago, Mayor London Breed addressed San Francisco’s crime problem. She said something few politicians do.  Crime will be reduced, according to Breed, “when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement … and less tolerant of all the bullshit [emphasis mine] that has destroyed our city.” Crime may or may not be…

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LAURA AND DUKE—A HATE STORY

America generally accepted racism in 1871, even though the Civil War had ended six years earlier. A century later, bigotry stood officially condemned. Yet prejudice had its champions. Today, those champions have champions.  On Laura Ingraham’s February 20 Fox News show, author/journalist Raymond Arroyo rebutted the furor resulting from the resurfacing of a 1971 Playboy interview…

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THE BEYONCÉ FACTOR

The superstar singer Beyoncé is popping up everywhere. She sang (okay, lip-synced) at President Obama’s inaugural. She starred in the halftime show at last Sunday’s Super Bowl. And she is mentioned and seen but not given thoughts or dialog—in Ben Fountain’s novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, a National Book Award finalist. That’s something to…

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THE REAL HALL OF FAMERS

America is big on halls of fame. Walls and walks of fame, too. But we’re missing one hall, and it’s more important than all the others combined. Yet we’ll never build it—it would honor too many people and so be way too costly. But these folks should be acknowledged. By way of explanation, I just…

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