Chris Honoré: A dereliction of duty
There are a number of issues confronting our nation that are being ignored by our Congress and the White House. Regarding two, most especially, the question is: Why?A few brief examples: why do we as a...
View ArticleChris Honoré: A meme for the West Wing
On June 1, 2017, at 12:01 in the morning, Donald Trump tweeted the following: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” The word covfefe had his followers on Twitter and the press reaching for...
View ArticleChris Honoré: Deconstructing a Trump rally
On March 10, Donald Trump traveled to Moon Township in Pennsylvania to deliver a speech in support of Republican candidate Rick Saccone. Saccone’s opponent was Conor Lamb, a Democrat. This is a...
View ArticleChris Honoré: Collecting, then connecting the dots
So Robert Mueller and crew continue to collect dots and then painstakingly connect them. The data takes the investigators ever closer to the Oval Office and grows increasingly complex at a rate that is...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild: A second beginning
Immediately after the November 2016 election, I discontinued my weekly column for this newspaper. From writing Relocations I had derived pleasure, and from my readers encouragement. But Trump’s...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild: Who is the enemy?
Last May, on two consecutive Monday evenings, I viewed the six episodes of “A Force More Powerful,” a documentary about the efficacy of nonviolent direct action campaigns, which originally aired on PBS...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: How we really live
In my previous column I identified our oppressor as our culture, shaped by laissez-faire capitalism, which posits competition as our natural condition and the iron law of winners and losers. I urged us...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: Is it a global free-for-all?
Last week I looked at driving our cars to test the validity of the pervasive assumptions of our culture — we compete with each other for the good things in life, and there must always be winners and...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: A frightening idea
If the mission of our military were to defend us from attack by hostile forces, it would be impossible to justify its present size, weaponry and deployment. Those are dictated primarily by the quest...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: Loyalty oath returns
When I was a teaching assistant at Harvard, I had to sign a loyalty oath. The same was true when I took a full-time position at LSU. This trademark of the McCarthy era had been deemed constitutional by...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: A class act
Among the numerous privileges with which I was endowed, being white and male were two. Helpful as they were, I don’t think they were determinative in smoothing my way to worldly success. After all,...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: More on class and race
Reader unhappiness with last week’s column prompted some searching conversations. I’m pleased. When I get no pushback, I worry that, like MSNBC, I’m simply reinforcing your current opinions.My focus...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: Reframing the issue of gun violence
Few of us support gun violence at home; huge numbers of us support it abroad. Our efforts to curtail domestic violence of all sorts will be severely hampered so long as we celebrate war and honor those...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: One degree of Blake Farenthold
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a parlor game created in 1994 by three college students. Premised on the notion that any two humans are no more than six acquaintances apart, and also that Kevin Bacon...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: Let’s talk about money
We need to talk about money. That’s the way I ended my last column. Few of the people with whom I associate talk about money. People with a great deal of money talk about money, but it makes most...
View ArticleEasing nuclear tensions
Do threats produce compliance? Often yes, but it’s always a grudging compliance that lasts only as long as resistance seems futile. Lately, women have been impressing that truth on powerful men. Some...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: Serving two masters
Who will you serve? In political as well as personal life, answering this question is foundational to any new beginning. Democrats can win some elections without radical self-examination. Both major...
View ArticleHerb Rothschild Jr.: Withdrawing from agribusiness
For more than half my life I lived beside the Mississippi River. In my childhood we ate river shrimp, smaller but tastier than salt water varieties. No longer. The river at New Orleans is too polluted....
View ArticleCouncil Corner: Thank you, Ashland
I want to publicly thank my community for all the support my family and I have received over the nine years have served on the Ashland City Council. At this past council meeting, I formally stepped...
View ArticleCouncil Corner: Voting no is important
I simply do not think it is the way we treat people in Ashland. Never has been, never will be.The three people who are under the threat of recall are all good people, public servants who have stepped...
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