The concerted effort to stop the Voting Rights Act is a reminder that those who lose wars, especially civil wars, never stop fighting. — America is many different things to many different people. This, I believe, is what makes it the land of great contradictions. It is not a new phenomenon; the country was born that way. …

Joseph Bologne was a composer whose genius rivaled, some say surpassed, Mozart’s. Why are we just hearing about him now? — Up until a few weeks ago, I’d never heard the name Joseph Bologne. Many people in my world whom I thought would know or should know the name — those who support classical music; those who appreciate and study classical music; those who play classical music — never heard the…

In Memoriam of Charlie Watts — Charlie Watts exited the Rolling Stones on August 24th, 2021 the only way his bandmates would allow: he passed away. The last time the world needed to get its collective head around the loss of a Rolling Stone was in 1969 when the band’s founder, Brian Jones, was found dead…

We might figure out how to make spaceflight affordable for all, but will we figure it out in time? — The United Nations is not pleased to inform us that climate change continues unabated. Meanwhile, gazillionaires like Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson are training to become astronauts. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. A long time ago and in this very same galaxy I facilitated an innovation lab with the good…

Paris is racing to rebuild a cathedral that wasn’t really there in the first place — On April 15, 2019 — Holy Monday — a fire broke out in Notre-Dame de Paris. After raging pitilessly for five hours, two-thirds of the most famous cathedral in the world was gone forever including Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s spire; a 13th century roof — “the forest,” so called for the amount…

In the face of crisis, when the temptation to think “every man for himself” is the strongest, we are [still] free to cultivate kindness — Say what you will about papal infallibility but one can’t deny the flawless timing of Fratelli Tutti, the latest encyclical from Pope Francis I. He published it for the faithful, the intellectually and spiritually curious, and “all people of good will” on October 3rd — exactly one month before a…

Denying insults of U.S. troops, Trump denies his entire schtick — N o sitting president in American history has dared to traduce indeed outright smear the men and women in uniform, those sworn to obey him as commander in chief, and to defend our Constitution. It is the one fruit a president is not supposed to touch; the only one in…

Memorials to America’s slave society must go for a simple yet overlooked fact: they are redundant — History: A Work In Progress Upon my first visit to France, I was awestruck by everything I saw — the art, the architecture — and, as much if not more, by what I didn’t see: numerous palaces, shrines and monasteries that were razed during different stages of the French Revolution. …