That is a the photo of Sarah Silverman from her Twitter profile. If you aren’t familiar with her, she is a popular comedian and actress. Politically, she is unabashedly and shamelessly liberal. As her last name suggests, she was also raised Jewish, though she considers herself more of a cultural Jew rather than religious. Her comedy isn’t always “family friendly” and it’s not for the prudish or squeamish. She can be brutally honest, frank, and tends not to pull any... Read more
Dogs chase cars all the time. I suspect it makes them feel tough and important–look at me chasing you off my turf–as they chase car after car. They never actually catch one, of course. What would they do with it if they caught it? They’d find out very quickly that they didn’t really want to catch it, they just wanted to look tough enough to do it. But in November of 2016, a dog finally caught a car and he... Read more
He’s at it again… President Trump already has a long track record of the most unpresidential public decorum in history. He takes to Twitter almost daily with his childish, passive-aggressive attacks on the media, celebrities he doesn’t like, even ordinary citizens who disagree with him. He makes it seem as if he’s the only president who has ever faced criticism when, in reality, he is just the only president who is so childish and immature that he has to lash... Read more
If you’ve read any of my writing over the past year and a half, you’ll know that I make no secret of the fact that I have little good to say about the leadership of President Trump and you’ll know that I have little patience for those who profess to be Christians who have remained steadfast in their support of him. It’s incredibly hard for me to look at the words and deeds of President Trump and see any way... Read more
Nothing irritates a hypocrite more than hypocrisy. Perhaps Americans hate hypocrisy so much because it is knitted into our DNA. Hypocrisy is our national genetic flaw, a mutation which began at our conception. The seemingly endless stream of revelations of sexual misconduct that has left behind a long line of dead or dying high profile careers–except, it would appear, for that of President Trump whose disgustingly sexist past seems to have been grandfathered in–has social media all aflutter. Any observer with a modicum... Read more
I used to count myself in your number, right wing Christians. I used to buy into the fallacy that to be a “good Christian” I had to fall in line with conservative political policies. I came of age in the era of Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” movement. They did a masterful job of wresting control of the American political narrative for Christians. I bought in, despite the fact that I came from a long line of Christian Democrats. I was actually... Read more
It was no ordinary special election to fill a Senate seat vacancy. This election was a political and religious standoff. This election came at a time of incredible political division–particularly among Christians. Just when it was beginning to feel as if the nation was hopelessly entangled in our red and blue netting–that there was simply no way to turn a red state in the Bible Belt to blue, it happened. I was watching this one closely and, frankly, I had... Read more
I wish it was simple. I wish what I want in my heart was obviously the right constitutional call. But the case before the Supreme Court, now called Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, is anything but simple, and the right call is far from obvious. The knee-jerk reactionary side of me wants the court to line up in solidarity and take turns slapping sense into the specialty cake baker who refused to create a custom cake for a gay... Read more
A family sits huddled in a small room in the veterinary clinic. Mother is sniffling, tears stream down her face as she attempts to stifle her sobs. Little Sister is almost inconsolable with grief. Even Dad’s eyes are red and watery and he sits in silence wishing he could say something to make it all better but feeling only helpless. Brother, now twelve, is standing by his mother and little sister, stroking their hair to give them comfort. He is... Read more
Empathy Mining
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In
Let Us Turn Our Thoughts Today to Martin Luther King
Last year at work, we took a survey to find out whether we had ingrained racial biases. The test was created by Harvard University to reveal subconscious preferences seated deeply within us for one skin tone over another. As I expected, my test results revealed I had a preference for white faces. I didn’t want that to be true but, frankly, I wasn’t shocked. After all, I lived most of the first half of my life with very little contact with... Read more