Eleven years ago, the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” focused on Al Gore’s attempt to raise public awareness of the dangers posed by global warming. http://imdb.to/2sDOjEU  The film made something of a splash with its stark picture of climate change and its impact on the planet. It captured public attention, for a time. But then […]

Ghostwriting haunts some ghostwriters who don’t get credit, but the tradeoff for anonymity is payment. It can be as painful to write about your own culture as it is to cross the cultural divide to write about others. If you are an author and want to get rich, buy a lottery ticket. These were among […]

For such an accomplished man of letters — Pulitzer Prize winner, novelist, literary critic, and the first editor of the Washington Post’s Book World — Bill McPherson, who died here on March 28th at the age of 84, could be remarkably modest and self-effacing.Upon learning of his death, one of my former Post colleagues shared […]

The civil war over the Confederate Civil War soldier whose granite likeness has stood for more than a century outside the Rockville courthouse appears to be over. Having been sheathed in plywood for two years — either to protect it from vandals or to protect viewers from its offensive sight — the soldier is moving, […]

If this country had not admitted my immigrant grandfather Yitzchok Lempert (later known as Isaac Lampert) in 1904, and my grandmother Rochel Perski Lempart (later, Rose Lampert) three years later with my Aunt Basia (Bessie), I would not exist. Nor, I should add, would my three sons. My mother, Emma Lampert Meyer, was the first […]

Much has been said and written recently about the role and importance of journalism and journalists – and the news media in general – to be truth tellers, to be the recorders and reporters of facts, even or especially when faced with “alternative facts” and demagogic attacks on the “dishonest media.” So-called “fake news” and […]

In 1962, two competing networks – NBC and CBS – subsidized Germans seeking to tunnel under the Berlin Wall. The West Germans had one goal: to free their compatriots on the other side. The networks wanted something else, a news story. It was blatant pay-to-play, and, in the end, only NBC succeeded, over the objections […]

“Carrie Bradshaw” loved to buy expensive shoes, but the actress who played her? Not so much. Sarah Jessica Parker, contrary to what you may think, is not a shoe horse. And she doesn’t even like to shop! But the “Sex and the City” star now in the HBO series “Divorce” does like the smell of […]

Three score and 15 years ago, our country was deeply divided. There were the isolationists and the interventionists, the former insisting on an America First that turned its back on the rest of the world, the latter deeply concerned about the rise of totalitarian regimes abroad and their threat to democracy at home. That was […]