France’s skewed view of free speech
For some Americans France can seem like a trip back in time, not always in a good way. "In terms of racial progress," writes Joel Dreyfuss in The Root, "France...
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Ignoring the slaughter in Nigeria
Why should the world care about Nigeria more than its own president does? That sounds harsh, but it expresses a painful truth. Muslim terrorists killed 17 people in Paris earlier...
Europe’s lukewarm ethnic melting pot
In the language of headline writers, he is "Muslim Man," hailed as a hero for hiding hostages during last week's terrorist attacks by Muslim fanatics in France. When the kosher...
Sorry, I am not ‘Charlie’
Je ne suis pas Charlie. I am not Charlie, although they have my sympathies and support. Like other Americans of goodwill, I am appalled by the savage and cowardly attack...
Internet age can threaten freedoms
When media guru Marshall McLuhan declared back in the 1960s that "Every innovation has within itself the seeds of its reversal," I had no idea what he meant. But, like...
The GOP can’t shake David Duke. Does it want to?
Just when I thought David Duke had gone the way of the Betamax, buggy whips and record stores, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, Republican politician and jailbird re-emerged to...
‘Selma’: As relevant today as in 1965
It is no crushing insult to Ava DuVernay's "Selma" that experts dispute its accuracy. In today's movie culture, accuracy only matters when the movie is worth arguing about. Guardians of...
2014 took the ‘awe’ out of ‘awesome’
It was an "awesome" year. In my annual search for a word that pretty much describes the past year, I have found that almost everything, everywhere, was "awesome." I am...
Support police, fight bad policing
In an ideal world, there should be no contradiction between support for police and opposition to bad policing. But after the coldblooded murder of two police officers in New York,...
Ignoring the other side of the story
During my decades of journalism, I have been alternatively amused and appalled by the sarcastic newsroom slogan: "A story too good to check out." I've been amused by the battlefield...