Where our trust in the news continues to live

January 30, 2020

Every Wednesday morning, James McDaniel sits along the South Main Street portion of U.S. Highway 11 (in Lexington, Va.) with a healthy stack of The News-Gazette beside him. He wears a neat white apron with the newspaper’s moniker stitched across the top. He keeps a small, folded tarp tucked away to protect the paper in case of rain, even if there isn’t a cloud in the sky. “You just never know,” he says. He also keeps a broad, never-failing smile on his face and a “hello” on his lips for everyone who passes on the street, whether they buy a paper or not. During the ...

Bloomberg is showing Democrats a good time

January 29, 2020

Democrats could use some cheering up now that their conventional politicians are locked in fierce ideological battle. The moderate Democratic majority fears that an aggressive left could saddle them with a zombie candidate sure to lose to President Donald Trump. That person could also cost them control of the House by hurting down-ballot Democrats in hard-won swing districts. Oh, happy day, then, that former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is tapping his vast fortune to make defeating Trump central to his mission. Bloomberg is vying for the Democratic nomination, and his candidacy is ...

Kobe Bryant’s death shook us

January 29, 2020

Kobe Bryant’s death shook us. It’s what happens when people larger than life — complete with their flaws and their failings — die suddenly. Too young. Too unexpected. Too much. The news of a helicopter crash in California broke Sunday on Twitter, and everyone saw a name: Kobe. Kobe killed. And it couldn’t be right. Had to be a hoax. He was 41. An international star, familiar enough to be known by just one name, like Diana, Marilyn, Bowie. When they died, we heard, “My God, Bowie’s dead” and “Oh, Diana, such a loss” and “No, not Marilyn.” So it was Sunday. “Kobe ...

Nonstop election campaigns not good for our country

January 28, 2020

I love Ireland for its natural beauty, its people, its food (some of it), its music, its writers and especially its elections, which are shorter, less costly and designed to engage citizens and boost voter turnout. On Jan. 14, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar called a general election for Feb. 8. That means a campaign of slightly more than three weeks. In the process, the Irish Parliament was dissolved. What a delightful thought. If only the U.S. Congress could be at least occasionally dissolved. It could use some dissolving, or at least disinfecting, after the toxic impeachment and ...

So much for ‘pain of imprisonment’

January 28, 2020

“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, all persons are commanded to keep silent on pain of imprisonment while the House of Representatives is exhibiting to the Senate of the United States articles of impeachment against Donald John Trump, President of the United States.” I’ve always been a small-D democrat, but that’s never interfered with the agreeable sense of awe I experience when our institutions turn ceremonial. I enjoy the reserved ritual and formality of the State of the Union address. I appreciate the quaint, old-fashioned phrases that hark back to our nation’s beginnings: ...

Hell was a place called Auschwitz

January 27, 2020

This week marks 75 years since Soviet troops stormed the gates of hell. Hell was near a Polish town called Oswiecim. Hell was a place called Auschwitz. That murder factory has all but passed from memory now, been swallowed by history. So perhaps it feels distant to you, far removed in space and time. In 2005, the year of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I went to Poland with a Holocaust remembrance group led by a man named Joe Engel. We toured Majdanek, Belzec, Treblinka and the two main camps of the Auschwitz complex, from which Engel escaped in January 1945. With ...