The war we all saw coming has arrived. A week ago, I predicted it would launch last Tuesday and be announced in the State of the Union. I was off by three […]
This is Not Who We Are Really? Ask Dr. King if He Recognizes Our Current Reality
I keep hearing people say, when describing our current reality of random and often brutal sweeps based on ethnic characteristics, when we see masked thugs roaming our streets searching for “law breakers, […]
Out of My Mind: 2025 The Year that Was
Year-end columns usually highlight the high points. What to do with a year that is an accumulation of “low points?” If “Comedy is tragedy plus time,” this could be a very funny […]
Out of My Mind: 2025 The Year that Was
Year-end columns usually highlight the high points. What to do with a year that is an accumulation of “low points?” If “Comedy is tragedy plus time,” this could be a very funny […]
commentary: Out of My Mind: Trump Sprays Gold Paint Like a Dog Marking Territory
Some graffiti vandals spray walls with paint from cans. Trump spreads his name with gold plated signs on buildings. Trump’s need to rename places, programs and institutions by inserting his own name […]
Opinion: Out of My Mind: The Beginning of the End for Trump
“Is this the end of Little Caesar?” Trump’s Titanic ego hit an iceberg last night (November 4) in the off off-year election of 2025. It wasn’t gigantic as icebergs go but it […]
opinion: Out of My Mind: Trump the White House and Louvre
The violation of the White House (standing in for our democracy) and the Louvre are perfect symbols and metaphors for the wanton destruction of our sacred historic institutions. These violations have much […]
Opinion: Out of My Mind: The Silencing of the Lambs: Not Just About Kimmel and Colbert
Pastor Martin Niemoeller famously wrote, “First they came for the socialists, but I was not a socialist, so I said nothing.” Any allusion to Pastor Niemoeller instantly summons the history of how, […]
Opinion: Out of My Mind: Supreme Court Rips Lady Justice’s Mask Off
The Supreme Court yesterday (September 8, 2025) threatened to put a knife into the very heart of what gives this nation any claim even to aspire to exceptionalism by allowing race, ethnicity […]
Out of My Mind: When You Follow a Leader
Once upon a time, possibly this very time, Americans believed that lemmings threw themselves off cliffs in a kind of unspoken but intentional suicide pact. We believed this because Walt Disney, in […]
Out of My Mind: On Healing Our Aching Souls with Hope Dreams & Action
As a writer and teacher, I am accustomed to having my ideas, thoughts, words, motives and sometimes character questioned. I normally welcome being put into a position of questioning my beliefs and […]
Jackbooted ICE Thugs are Domestic Terrorists
“We have met the enemy and he is us” –Pogo by Walt Kelley The head of ICE, Tom Homan, hates being accused of leading an American version of the Gestapo. However, if […]
Out of My Mind: A Stranger in a Strange Land
No longer at ease… –TS Eliott The Journey of the Magi I walked into a market in Redwood City in search of a normal drink to quench my thirst. Wasn’t looking for […]
Out of My Mind: A Coming c and Coup? Not coming, but already here!
Most Americans are like the proverbial frogs, noticing that the water is heating up but not realizing that by the time it gets to a boil, they’ll be cooked. Each of the […]
Opinion: Out of My Mind: Who Will Lead? Rudderless ships of State in Stormy Seas
There is a clear crisis of leadership in the West. When we look around our nation (the USA) and our world (the only one we have), we can easily determine who leads […]
Opinion: Out of My Mind:The Autopsy of American Democracy Not Dead Yet…Monty Python
American Democracy isn’t dead yet but is under attack and on life support. Who believed that our guardrails and the spines of so many legislators and businessmen would crumble so fast? Many […]
Out of My Mind: History Does Repeat Itself
We are repeating the Gilded Age, the time of Robber Barons and income inequality without precedent. Today’s Gilded Age redux is giving me reflux as we exceed the excesses of the last […]
Out of My Mind: Finger Pointing without Reflection
My brokenhearted fellow Liberals are in a hurry to find someone to blame, some explanation to deny our own responsibility. We point everywhere but at ourselves. Our belief that the American people […]
Out of My Mind: Power to the People not the Pols and Plutocrats
This is the way Democracy ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Our major media companies are letting our First Amendment die without a whimper. A motto is above the door […]
The Agony of a Pro-Palestinian Zionist
There’s tension in my title. With all the killing, suffering, hopelessness and despair, my agony isn’t central. Yet, it drives my effort to understand the complexities that cause our moral compasses to […]
Out of My Mind: Words Mean Something: Mass Destruction, War Crimes & Genocide
Israel’s everyday treatment and mistreatment of Palestinians on the West Bank and “over the top” violence in Gaza are certainly open to criticism. Well, that’s an understatement. The tragic facts on the […]
Out of My Mind: Protests in the 60s & Today
I’ve never received so many requests to write about a topic as this: The current “horrifying” campus protests in comparison to our “righteous” protests of the ’60s. I did survive Civil Rights […]
Out of My Mind: Free Speech and the First Amendment: Our Most Misunderstood Amendment
Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of […]
Out of My Mind: The War with Iran Turns Hot
Almost every war begins with a tragic series of miscalculations. Nations get fooled into not understanding the gravity of their actions, and sometimes, the whole world pays the price. Today, three hours […]
Out of My Mind: Human Evolution: Batteries Not Included
Robots will not replace me! The fear that we’re building our replacements is unfounded. We are building our replacement parts. Robots aren’t coming to get me. I’m absorbing them into my body. […]
Out of My Mind: We Are at War: Iran & the Three H Axis of Resistance
We are at war with Iran. Unlike the “Phoney War,” from 1939 to 1940 between England and Germany, when war was declared but not fully engaged, today we no longer declare war […]
Read the Early February 2024 Issue
Out of My Mind: Year End Column (Revised): Maybe it’s Not So Bad
I wrote a perfectly good year-end column that reviewed the big stories, mostly about our human foibles and follies, e.g., political corruption, homophobia, racism, abortion, and our horrible dehumanizing and demonizing of […]
Out of My Mind: If I Were a Palestinian Longing for Peace
I’m a Jewish-American Zionist and support the right of Israel to continue to exist as a Jewish state. However, as an exercise in empathy, I’m moved to wonder what I’d think and […]
Out of My Mind: The New Old Anti-Semitism
I first encountered anti-Semitism in 1950 while watching our tiny new TV. I saw bodies piled up and bulldozers pushing them into open graves. I saw barely living skeleton people in striped […]
Out of My Mind: Tears of Futility
Prologue: I was walking in the countryside in Tunisia in 1967 and encountered a German cemetery from WWII. Family members had clearly visited and put pictures of these forever young men on […]
Out of My Mind: Conservatives Aren’t Always Wrong (Nor Liberals Always Right)
We politicize everything: sex, gender, wars, viruses, masks, race and religion. However, as Obama said, “We are not a red nation or a blue nation. We are purple.” We are a blend […]
Governor DeSantis: Not an Outlier Only a Liar
Enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” –Governor Ron DeSantis Failing and flailing presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, in trying to tidy up (whitewash) American […]
Out of My Mind: Is Israel a Racist State?
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal characterized Israel as a racist state. Her charge was itself racist, offensive, and anti-Semitic. It was also both true and meaningless. The Squad also calls Israel an Apartheid state. […]
Out of My Mind: The Scales of Compassion
As I write this, the world’s attention is drawn to the passengers trapped (or dead) on a submersible that was searching for the Titanic. We can’t help but put ourselves in their […]
