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During the first week of September, the latest mass shooting tragedy occurred at a high school in Winder, Georgia. This has thrust the issue of gun safety reform squarely into the 2024 presidential campaign.
Thus far, there have been more mass shootings than days in the year (385 according to the Gun Violence Archive). Here are a few other shocking statistics to consider:
As another annual 9/11 observance has come and gone, I want to pay tribute to those lost, including a close childhood friend who was working in the Twin Towers as a financial trader on that tragic day.
President Roosevelt (FDR) called the bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II: “A date that will live in infamy.” The same can be said of 9/11.
Even though it’s been 23 years, we must be mindful year-round of all the families, friends and relatives who lost loved ones. The memories and pain of loved ones lost never goes away.
Continue reading One 9/11 Victim’s Positive Impact Posthumously – by David B. Grinberg
After the attempted assassination of former President Trump, will there be renewed discussions around gun control? Gun violence researchers saying that there’s a contagion effect with every incident encouraging copy cats, little progress has been made.
Continue reading Guns and more Guns, Again – by Deborah Levine
Constance Hayes Matsumoto and Kent Matsumoto are authors of “Of White Ashes,” which is based on the true story of their Japanese American family during World War II.
Hear them discuss the inspiration for “Of White Ashes”.
What I offer is an unapologetic defense of the Jewish People. Oh yes, we are indeed a People. Not an ethnicity, though we have many ethnicities within our general culture. Not a religion, though we do have numerous and competing variations of theology among our ranks. It ain’t about religion.
Jews are the indigenous nation of the Land of Israel.
We’ve been separated from our land for a couple thousand years.
Jews are indigenous under the definition provided by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Where we differ from virtually every other dispossessed indigenous culture is that we have honored the memory of our roots. Through a couple of millennia of suffering the brutality visited upon us by most of our foreign hosts, we not only remembered our homeland, but we’ve had the unwelcome chutzpah to recover and resettle it.
If you can discern the presence of disproportionately more temples than public toilets; wide streets; tri-segregated waste bins lining the intersections of lanes and roads; the selling of meat concealed by humongous black cloths; mannequins, automobiles, absolutely any entity at all being adorned with orange flags depicting the Hindu God, Ram, you have successfully reached Indore. Welcome. Officially known as the cleanest city of India, this city boasts being free of open defecation, of possessing a minimal Air Quality Index (AQI) ranging from 50-80, source segregation of waste, and the list is interminable.
But, what does it mean to be the cleanest city of India? What are we cleaning? And for whom? Who gets to reap the benefits and who is burdened with the colossal task of cleaning? Let us find out.
Continue reading A Closer Look Inside India’s Cleanest City – by Yana Roy
Recently I was asked to compare and contrast the Anti-Vietnam War Protests of the mid to late 1960’s and early 1970’s with the current Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Gaza, and Anti-Israel protests, largely on college campuses. I was very active in activities against the War in Vietnam while in college and graduate school. I have some regrets at some of the stupid things I said and did. Therefore I try to understand the current demonstrators. I had a ox being gored—fear of being drafted. Thus, I had a personal stake in the actions. Today’s students have no such stake. It is especially notable that most of the groups opposing Israel’s stance in the Gaza War have no stake whatsoever in that part of the world.
I used to write about terrorist destructors in the U.S. every spring. My articles began with the domestic terrorism of the Oklahoma City bombing more than thirty years ago on April 19. That’s when I became the community/media liaison for Oklahoma’s Tulsa Jewish Federation. It was shortly after the bombing destroyed the Murrah Building and so many lives were affected. I felt compelled to investigate what led to the deadliest bombing, prior to 9/11, on our native soil. The violent hatred that I saw has not only continued, but has expanded globally, and now, it encompasses the entire year.
Continue reading Tracking our Terrorist Destructors – by Deborah Levine
I moved around frequently as a child, going wherever my mom would take my older sister and me. My parents had been divorced since I was two, so it was just the three of us. We would randomly switch houses, states, schools, and be constantly making new friends. I don’t remember a whole lot of the schools, but the one that sticks out the most was a private-christian school in Mobile, Alabama. We attended this one from third to fifth grade which was a long time period being in one school for us.
For thousands of years, women have been oppressed. For thousands of years, women have carried the burdens of stereotypes and unrealistic expectations.