A peace troubadour recalls surviving 9/11
I was in the heart of downtown NYC on the morning of 9/11.Leaving the building I was in at 9:05 a.m., I saw the first building of the World Trade Center on fire. Almost immediately, the second building...
View ArticleInner Peace: Connecting with a dark soul to share inner peace
He was tall, wearing all black with hair to match. I noticed him when I entered the temporary homeless shelter Christmas Eve. The man in black stood motionless, leaning on the doorway entrance from the...
View ArticleInner Peace: Remembering a special wedding during Pride Week
One week and one day after a gunman unleashed his fear-based fury at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, I spent the morning with two gay men and their families at their wedding rehearsal. The first...
View ArticleFind peace from a place of presence
If you are not at peace in your intimate relationship, then your life will not be at peace. To gain some insight here, let’s step back and consider the typical stages of intimate relationships.The...
View ArticlePath to enlightenment can change your life
As a very young man, I remember hearing about “enlightenment.” The Buddhists talked about the Buddha being enlightened and that that was the ultimate goal in life. When you were enlightened you were...
View ArticleInner Peace: Our Halloween identity: Goblin, ghoul — or angel?
At Halloween we can have fun exploring our various inner “creature features” and play "let’s pretend" for one night. Many of us wonder at some point during our lives who we really are. Some question...
View ArticleInner Peace: The gap — Habitual peace or stillness
William James in his essay on habits says quite correctly that our daily habits can be allies or enemies. He elaborates further and says that if we want healthy bodies then we must exercise regularly...
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: Failure to launch
My, my, the incredulity of liberals of a certain age when confronted by the peculiar and persistent fact that the kids are still for Bernie.How could it be so? What possible logic is there for such an...
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: Mein Trumpf
During the past couple of days, I have sat through hour upon hour of speeches at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, so that you, dear reader, didn't have to.I'm trying hard to blame this...
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: No sense in Pence
With all the chitchat on the internet and elsewhere regarding the ghoulish hilarity of a possible Trump presidency, one of the ideas consistently making the rounds is the suggestion that Trump is too...
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: Blinded by the white
A recent letter in the Tidings from Ashland resident James Adams gave me pause. Adams is irritated by the fact that OSF has stated in a recent open letter that racist incidents are "happening daily in...
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: Citizen Kaine
With Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at the forefront of the silly season in 2016, it’s not at all surprising that there has not been much oxygen left in the room for their vice presidential picks....
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: The Manafort conundrum
Just when you thought the Donald Trump campaign couldn’t get any weirder, his campaign chairman, the opaque but charismatic Paul Manafort, has become embroiled in a political intrigue the likes of...
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: Wilder at heart
If I were to tell you that Bertolt Brecht, that scion of 20th century epic theater, was a significant contributor to some of the best of Borscht Belt-style slapstick comedy during the latter part of...
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: The problem with Saint Teresa
It’s tricky, even in this day and age, to go after a figure so universally revered and wholly worshiped as the newly sainted Mother Teresa of Calcutta.So beatific is she in the eyes of guilty...
View ArticleJeffrey Gillespie: A confederacy of deplorables
As far as gaffes go, Hillary Clinton and her "basket of deplorables" (when read within the context of her full statement) isn't nearly as bad as conservatives might have you think it is. Unfortunately...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: New developments
Most of the subjects of my column are ongoing concerns. They don’t go away just because I’ve had my say. So periodically I like to report relevant developments.Saudi Arabia: In my May 27 column I...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: Different yardsticks
Last July I told you that I knew David Duke personally. He enrolled at LSU in fall 1968, three years after I joined the faculty and two years after I founded the local ACLU chapter. Several times he...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: Tools of change
During this year’s commemoration of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, one event focused on civil disobedience as a tool of social change. The program planners scheduled it because we had as a...
View Article