(First, a note on language. I use the term “beggar” in this post, rather than the more modern and commonly used “panhandler,” with specific intention. “Panhandler” is regarded as more value-neutral than “beggar,” which supposedly carries with it a degree of moralism and judgment. In my view, however, “panhandler” minimizes and thus devalues the actual desperation of these people who live in such drastically reduced circumstances, which calls out for a fully human response not reflected in a word that more suggests a job title than it does the pathos we all know is the actual case. I feel the…
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After a couple of years of what has felt like an extraordinary period of loss, I’ve come to realize, in that forehead-slapping “Duh!!! kind of way signifying I’ve been a bit slow on the uptake, that there’s nothing “extraordinary” at all about people dying with regularity at my age, all through my family and friendship circle. It’s just the way of things, a pure math and probability issue, that a certain percentage of people die at rates that increase with each decade. Just a few tragic unfortunates suffer their demise in the early decades, but the trend line goes steadily…
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On January 13, 2019, nearly 10 months before what would become the first violent attempt in American history to overthrow the results of a presidential election with the full blessing of the incumbent president who refused to accept his defeat, I wrote in this space the following while awaiting the outcome of the Robert Mueller investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 election: “So what will they do, these Republicans, if Mr. Mueller presents conclusive evidence…that the president of the United States willfully and repeatedly sought the assistance of and, in return, provided succor to, a longtime nemesis of his…
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Let’s face it—there’s just no good that ever comes with a hurricane. Or a tornado or tsunami or earthquake or wildfire or mass shooter or cruel despot. Yes, there’s a provocative philosophical argument to be made about whether the latter two of those belong on a list of the so-called “natural” phenomena that precede it, but let’s hold that aside for now to affirm the larger point that human suffering, particularly on a mass, out-of-the-blue scale, is always tragic and unwelcome. Which is different, however, than saying, “No good can ever come from or be revealed and expressed by tragedy.”…
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I was watching the fifth or sixth version of Beth Hart’s “Leave the Light On” the other night when I realized my hand had been on my heart since somewhere through the first version I’d heard. I must have placed it there when I began to realize what the song was about and had become fully absorbed in its pathos. The link to the full lyrics is here, but these four lines in the second stanza got my immediate attention, and Hart’s fine elocution and dramatic rendering did the remaining work: Little girl hiding underneath the bedWas it something I…