The Golden Door The drama of the American city was often a result of some of its internal contradictions. America might be the only nation in the world with a…
Remember all those illustrations of Jesus and little kids? Jesus loved little kids and was always going on about how we should be innocent like little kids. I certainly believed…
Cities were the first places to bring together peoples of different ethnic and racial backgrounds; hence the first places to test assimilation, tolerance, competition, and cooperation among different cultures. There…
I came to America because in the old country I had heard that the streets of America were “paved with gold.” But I learned three things after I arrived: First,…
If you have been following the early stages of the dramatic hoax of celebrated Notre Dame linebacker Manti T’eo, you, like I, might be a little suspicious of the front…
A joint review of John Rabe (2009, Florian Gallenberger), City of Life and Death (2009, Chuan Lu) and Flowers of War (2011, Zhang Yimou) I have long had a particular and I hope, not morbid, interest…
I am of an age that one hears of the inevitable passing of old friends and acquaintances. Being in what I call the “red zone” (not the “golden years”) of…
“Such a great clatter the gods make,” goes an old saying, “when they fall.” Indeed, this might well be, were it not for the fact that this was also the…
Random thoughts on Veterans Day Every Veterans Day gets me thinking about four of my late uncles who served in World War II, two of them in combat in North Africa, Italy, and Burma.…
The political reality check that the Republican Party received two days ago was like a Hurricane Sandy storm surge that wiped out a half-dozen of Mitt Romney’s mansions and caused…