On Jan. 20, 2025, when Donald Trump took the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States, he was overshadowed by the memory of a man and a movement that shaped our country’s history and changed the world. In Washington, D.C., there stands a granite statue of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther […]
King never gave up his righteous fight, an example for all to follow Read More »
Some people just won’t take no for an answer. Put in that category the Republican candidate for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Jefferson Griffin lost that race to incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs by just 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast, which has to hurt. Ask Democrat Cheri Beasley,
When the will of the voters meets a political power grab Read More »
It sounds like the plot of an adventure film — an elite, trained military unit is sent on a mission that’s intricate, critical and dangerous. But the story was real. Long before he was president of the United States, Jimmy Carter was one of the heroes of this particular operation, one that called for smarts,
Jimmy Carter’s version of being a man should still mean something Read More »
The “L-word.” It took some time for journalists to call a lie a lie when politicians uttered provable falsehoods. After all, don’t all politicians stretch the truth when it comes to policies, opponents or their own accomplishments? Bill Adair, an award-winning journalist and educator, shares his thoughts and experiences in his book “Beyond the Big
Lying in politics is a danger to democracy. Can it be fixed? Read More »
If my mother were alive, she would be disappointed at what her Republican Party has become. But not surprised. She had witnessed the GOP inching its way toward scapegoating some Americans to score political points with others in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, and thought the tactic, while canny and often effective, betrayed longtime African
A holiday season of personal and political reflection Read More »
With a recently concluded global climate summit with challenging takeaways, an incoming president who vows to again remove the U.S. from international climate agreements, and increasing weather disasters that defy what went before, a look at what is being called an existential crisis could be grim. But that’s not the kind of book Dr. Ayana
Looking at climate futures with imagination and resolve Read More »
When the primary for the 2020 presidential contest was just beginning, an acquaintance — an intelligent, wealthy, white Democrat — shared her sure-fire prediction as we shared dinner. “It’s going to be Michael Bloomberg,” she said. “He’s the logical choice” to be the party’s nominee for president. She seemed shocked when I told her, “It
Democrats’ competing postmortems leave out history — and the obvious Read More »
Remember the movie “Elysium”? Though the dystopian, science-fiction vision of a future Earth didn’t cause much of a stir when it was released in 2013, its premise deserves another look in 2024, when climate and environmental crises are disrupting countries across the globe. Even the average person can’t help but notice unseasonable fall weather, with
The consequences of climate and environmental policy unleashed Read More »
The candidates for president of the United States and their surrogates are talking a lot about values, and demonstrating their very different interpretations of what exactly that word means. It was a setting that recalled a horror many Americans have tried to forget, the place where former president Donald Trump incited a crowd that morphed
Closing with ‘values,’ Trump and Harris stand in contrast Read More »
Sports and politics don’t mix. In truth, that has never been the case. Sports, in fact, reflect every issue, every conflict in society from civil rights to equal justice. Melissa Ludtke knows this from experience. In the 1970s, when she was trying to cover Major League Baseball for Sports Illustrated, her path to doing the
How a battle for locker-room access was about so much more Read More »
