Chasing Carl Bernstein
Journalists of my generation and acquaintance are having a memoir moment. Peter Osnos, who covered Prince George’s County, Md. for the Washington Post before I did and went on to…
Read MoreClaudia Levy, R.I.P.
In the late 1970s, I had a great story about white flight from a Prince George’s County suburb of Washington, D.C. It involved whites acting on their racial biases and…
Read MoreThis place is for the birds!
So, I met my new neighbor the other day. She and her husband have a couple of pre-school kids. I told her our boys were four-and-a-half and 18 months old…
Read MoreJobs for Seniors? You Bet!
There are so many positions for seniors these days, you’d think that ageism was a thing of the past. From my LinkedIn feed, here are just a few: The Atlantic…
Read More“The Best is Yet To Come” — but When?
The marque of the old Orpheum Theater in Saugerties, N.Y. displayed this hopeful message for several weeks after I took this photo on May 24, 2021. The theater, opened in…
Read MoreMurderous Memories: Tulsa and Volozhin
Two massacres, 21 years and 2 continents apart. Tulsa, May 31-June 1, 1921. Volozhin, May 10, 1942. The survivors didn’t want to talk about it. They wanted to spare their…
Read MoreDC’s Central High and The March of Time
The Central High Alumni Record arrived in the mail the other day. The news was that the annual reunion, not held since 2019, and scheduled for this May 15, has…
Read MoreDangerfield and Harriet Newby: Hidden Figures No More
In my book FIVE FOR FREEDOM: The African Americans in John Brown’s Army, I highlight the tragic love story of Harriet and Dangerfield Newby with a chapter titled “One Bright…
Read MoreFrom Passover to Holocaust Remembrance
How ironic it is that as we mark the end of Passover, celebrating the Jews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land, it is also the…
Read MoreRecalling “Jimmy’s World” at the Washington Post
Remarkably, it’s been 40 years since fabulist Janet Cooke was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a story headlined “Jimmy’s World,” about an eight-year old heroin addict who did not exist.…
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