Our culture focuses so much on appearance that it can seem like a fact of life. For some decades now, thinness has been considered the ideal for how people should look. Lighter skin tones are still quite honestly considered a basic standard, but not skin that’s very pale: a nice “healthy” tan is desirable. Clear…
I’m going to start by saying I’m white. I simply do not know of myself what it’s like to experience being in skin of color. And I’m coming to appreciate more as I get older and as more shattering events occur just how much that means: that as much as I sympathize, I really can’t…
Fear is a powerful and primal emotion. It’s useful immediately but does more damage than good if allowed to continue for more than a short time. I’ve noted it’s done a lot of damage in individuals and our society in this time of pandemic. We were right to be afraid, in certain amounts, of the…
I’ve thought a lot recently about human nature. How it relates to our behaviors in this pandemic/shutdown and how it relates to other important worldwide issues, like trying to clean up the planet. This is just me, but I really think that our leaders don’t NEARLY often enough take into consideration how humans tend to…
I’m going to share my take on information/misinformation/freedom of speech and press as a journalist. This is just my take, with my opinions uniquely my own, created by my whole set of personal circumstances but heavily informed by my training and long years of editing/writing experience in the news field (this includes me having to…
Read more News media, social media and facts in the time of coronavirus
The holidays can bring such joy — families gather together to share specially prepared meals, exchange gifts, and savor the particular magic that seems to permeate the air. Frosty windowpanes frame displays of trees and candles whose lights dance about merrily. The cold makes noses jauntily pink, and hot cocoa and spiced cider warm everyone…
With my teen years firmly set in the ’80s, Prince was firmly set in my musical consciousness. His songs were fun, catchy, danceable and clear indicators of his genius. But his music and persona have become part of the fabric of my family’s life, as it’s turned out, so his death today comes as a…
My last blog post was about my goal to take better care of my health, with a multi-pronged approach. I did well for a few weeks. And then I didn’t. The catalyst for getting completely foiled, at least for the past month, was my grandmother’s death. It was expected; she was 99, and my family…
Today is the anniversary of my father’s death — officially (he was on life support for a day or two and then “declared dead”). I think he was really gone very late on the 13th or early the 14th. His brain experienced two big hemorrhages and I’m sure it was really “over” fairly soon. I…
It’s difficult for me as a mother, period, and as a fellow mother of a daughter with Down syndrome, to read the words of Hallie Levine, who says she would have aborted her daughter during her pregnancy if she’d had the diagnosis then. Sure, she says now she’s grateful she didn’t, but she asserts she…
