Both Rosellen and I consider Ernst Borinski one of our most significant mentors. I’m not sure if I’ve written about him before in these 300 postings but he surely deserves his own dedicated space in my blog. He’s on my mind for a particular reason today, which I’ll get to in a moment after I give you the short version of Ernst’s story. Ernst was the chairman of the sociology department at...
Historians of Freedom Summer (1964) have noted that a significant number of the participating volunteers were Jewish. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the liberal leanings of the Jewish community and a historical, though sometimes troubled affinity between Blacks and Jews. I’m guessing many of those young Jews were not regular synagogue attenders. They may even have been surprised to...
Every time there’s a trip to unknown places on the horizon, I’m overcome with an aversion to the whole enterprise a week or two before the departure date. The laws of inertia kick in. I begin to question why we’re going anywhere at all when we’re perfectly content right here, and you just know there will be unwelcome moments of stress and anxiety awaiting you. Who needs it at this point in our...
This isn’t a full-fledged posting. We’re just back from our trip a few days, most of which has been consumed by nursing Rosellen through a nasty few days of wrestling with the dreaded norovirus. It’s brief but nasty. Wash your hands. Given how contagious it is, I can’t believe I’ve been unaffected – so far. I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year, one not filled with any more foreign invasions...