Doubt, History, Parenthood

Be the Change You March For

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All politics is local, my dad was fond of saying. I’ve always subscribed to that theory in a metaphorical way.

Yes, change is wrought from inside great marbled halls. But my friends it is not born there.

It is not dreamed up on the spot by a well-meaning legislator who has a cartoon light bulb suddenly appear over his head in the midst of routine parliamentary procedure.

No. Change is born in the mind of a 4 year old, unencumbered by what he has been taught to believe, to make fun of, to be afraid of. Read more...

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Believe, Parenthood

Pressing the Reset Button: Family, The Election, and A More Perfect Union

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Friday was a tough morning in our house. For no apparent reason everyone was cranky and flippant and hostile. Including me. Our chance day off from school turned from a world full of possibilities into an inexplicable fracas about where we were going and why.

Instead of engaging in a reasonable discussion where differing viewpoints were acknowledged and debated respectfully, my household was filled with a barrage of insults, voices shouting over one another, and eye rolls.

Frankly it reminded me a lot of how the entire country is behaving right now. Read more...

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History

Why D-Day Matters

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DDay landings Omaha beach

Of all the places I have seen in my life, I have never been so physically and emotionally rocked to my core as I was on the beaches of Normandy. At Coleville-sur-mer, at Pointe du Hoc, at Omaha Beach.

It is impossible to grasp the magnitude of what these men – these boys really – faced when they came out of the waves 70 years ago, unless you see it in person. The photgraphs do not do justice to the sheer length and breadth of Omaha beach.

On a clear, beautiful day it is enough to make you dizzy. Now imagine that the water was soaked in blood, the air was yellow and gray with smoke from explosions and gunfire. Imagine that the boat reeked of vomit and that the men sitting in front of you were killed before they could even make it into the water. Imagine that the beach was longer than 3 football fields and rimmed with cliffs 150 feet high. Read more...

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