2021 marked the centennial anniversary of the Miss America pageant. Perhaps it was only fitting that Emma Broyles, a 21-year-old college student from Anchorage became both the first contestant from Alaska and the first Korean American to win the national contest. Broyles is currently a junior at Arizona State University where she is studying biomedical […]

We just didn’t believe it before the Capitol insurrection.

The pastiche of new state laws taking effect as the New Year begins underscores how different we are — at least in the eyes of legislators — on matters small and large. In New York State, for example, Styrofoam containers for takeout food are now prohibited by law, as are those pesky Styrofoam peanuts. But […]

At the end of 2020, it seemed hard to imagine a worse year for misinformation on social media, given the intensity of the presidential election and the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. But 2021 proved up to the task, starting with the Jan. 6 insurrection and continuing with copious amounts of falsehoods and distortions about […]

Sometimes serendipity reigns. I had learned about the Brunswick High School Winter Choral Concert on the morning of the performance, thanks to a post by a Facebook friend. “This might be a good way to get into the Christmas spirit,” I said to Tina. We arrived 45 minutes early to get good seats (my typical […]

Electric power game rigged against customers

One Christmas Day in the 1980s, Desmond Tutu led a packed church service in Soweto, the Black Johannesburg township and fulcrum of protest against white racist rule in South Africa. An American family — mine — found standing room at the back. We were among the few white people in the congregation and, as we […]

The outdoor temperature is 25 degrees and it is snowing steadily, adding a fresh coat of white on top of the inches of snow that have already accumulated on the ground in the last week. I am tucked inside my home, cozy with the thermostat cranked up to a balmy 72 degrees, and sipping a […]