Looper

Columns share an author’s personal perspective.***** The phrase “full of life” occasionally appears in print or is spoken in conversation. This or that person or, sometimes, this or that city, is said to be “full of life.” The phrase is found in many languages. German communicates it in a single word: Lebensfülle. What does it… … Read More

Columns share an author’s personal perspective.***** About once a week, I say to myself and anyone listening: “I hate Facebook!”It’s not that I’ve got something against Mark Zuckerberg. I am not, during these weekly laments, critiquing social media generally, though I am concerned about the losses suffered by those who spend more time in virtual… … Read More

Columns share an author’s personal perspective.***** I feel like I am in a Doctor Seuss story – like we are all in a Doctor Seuss story – a story I know. My kids and grandkids know it too: “The Sneetches.”In “The Sneetches,” Dr. Seuss presents a race of furry yellow, long-necked, narrow-footed creatures that are… … Read More

Columns share an author’s personal perspective.***** The author Max Lucado related the story of some clever thieves who were able to rob a department store in a large city without hiding any items in purses or clothes or taking a single item from the store that was not checked out by a clerk. They received… … Read More

Columns share an author’s personal perspective.***** The Bible claims that there is a fundamental reality to people that is not immediately apparent. The truest thing about any person is not something that can be seen. There is a self behind the public self. Of course, no one would deny this, but there is also a… … Read More

Columns share an author’s personal perspective.***** In 1936, the novelist and political activist Ethel Mannin asked Nobel Prize-winning poet W. B. Yeats to join her in petitioning the German government to release an outspoken pacifist who had been imprisoned. 1936 was also the year that Germany embarked on the Four-Year Plan, a Goering-led program to… … Read More

Columns share an author’s personal perspective.***** In the summer of 2016, my wife and I were on a 70,000-acre lake in Quebec that we had never been to before. On the third or fourth morning we were there, I took the boat out by myself. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the east was already… … Read More

Columns share an author’s personal perspective.***** When enough people care enough about prejudice, when concern reaches critical mass, action is taken. This usually means that legislation is passed or new policies enacted. The display of hatred associated with a particular prejudice – for example, race discrimination in housing – is outlawed.Such legislation is necessary and… … Read More

In late January, the U.S. had its first confirmed coronavirus case. Though the coronavirus was in the news, it seemed far away, like the SARS outbreak in 2003 or the Ebola epidemic that began in 2013. On Feb. 29, the U.S. reported its first confirmed COVID-19 death. Within two weeks, President Trump had banned most… … Read More

FX Networks (a Walt Disney Company) is about to release the documentary “AKA Jane Roe,” the story of Norma McCorvey, the woman whose challenge of Texas law led to the 1973 U.S. Court ruling that struck down many state and federal abortion laws. Ms. McCorvey was 21, unmarried and pregnant for the third time when… … Read More