Tag Archives: opinion column

‘The Keeper’ A Keeper for Memorial Day – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

On Memorial Day, we not only remember, but also honor those who gave their lives in service to our country. We grieve with their families whose loss will never be forgotten. I’m fortunate that my father survived his military service in World War II. But last week, I spoke to an Army veteran via Zoom whose new movie, The Keeper, taught me that suicide means Memorial Day includes more veterans than you think.

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Chattanooga’s festivals bring family, friends together for good works – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

It’s always a pleasure to attend community festivals that combine great fun with service to those in need. Over the weekend, I attended several of these events and I’ll be smiling over them for weeks. The first of these events was Derby Day on Saturday at the East Ridge Local Coffee. Derby Day was a fun way to support the East Ridge Needy Child Fund. This amazing organization does the important work of making sure that East Ridge children have shoes, clothes, toys and a food basket for the family.

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Why get “interested” in Artificial Intelligence – by Deborah Levine

Originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

It was super exciting to be invited to the annual conference of Project Voice which has taken place in Chattanooga, home to the country’s fastest internet since 2016. Project Voice looks at artificial intelligence, but not the traditional artificial intelligence (AI) that analyzes historical data and makes future numeric predictions. Rather, the focus is on conversational and generative AI, terms I hadn’t heard until sitting in the conference. Conversational AI can hold two-way interactions with humans by understanding and responding in text or speech. Generative AI can take prompts and create all kinds of stuff that never existed before but are indistinguishable from human-generated content. I started to feel overwhelmed by this new information. 

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Praying for the Earth’s Healing – by Deborah Levine

 (originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press) 

Wacky weather is our new norm. I called my daughter in Maine to tell her about how we went quickly from 80 degrees to below freezing. She said, “weird”, but it didn’t compare to what she’s going through. At first she called it a “spring snowstorm”, but as it got worse, she named it a “snowpocalpse”. She lost power, the trees in her yard were downed and despite having a monster truck, she barely made it home from work. 

If there’s any doubt that climate change is a reality, pay attention to a recent headline in the Chattanooga Times Free Press that warned of “Brewing Storms” as alarmingly high ocean temperatures suggest a nasty hurricane season coming up. My friends in Bermuda are paying attention. The Bermuda Royal Gazette reports that  waters in the Atlantic’s main hurricane development region had temperatures 65 % hotter at the end of January than the next closest year. Temperatures recorded in March aren’t usually seen until mid-July. So late summer should be a hurricane doozy with rapidly strengthening storms, even close to land.

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Broadway songs for our sanity – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

We live in a time of chaos and raging hate. How do we survive? The Arts can help and we should turn to them. My dad read poetry non-stop when serving as a US military intelligence officer during World War II. He said that’s how he kept his sanity dealing with the horrors of war. Dad summoned the Arts generations ago, when we moved reluctantly to American and us kids were heartbroken leaving Bermuda behind. He took us to art galleries and art museums and, fantastically, to a Broadway theater to see the musical, “West Side Story”. Wow! Maybe this America thing isn’t so bad!

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Holocaust education is necessary now more than ever – by Deborah Levine 

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

When I was invited to give a webinar for Echoes and Reflections, an organization in partnership with Yad Vashem (The World Holocaust Remembrance Center), I freaked out. This was Big Time and I better be good at it. Reviewing my documentary: Untold, Stories of a World War II Liberator and my dad’s wartime letters, I was reminded that not long ago, I made a similar presentation at a Chattanooga high school. A student told me that she wanted to hear “both sides of the story”. I wondered what she was seeing online, and knew that these archival documents are still relevant today, and Holocaust education is even more so.

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Inter-generational education needed now – by  Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

All too often we look at the elderly as outliers to society, and the presidential election is embedding in our minds that being old is a non-starter. It’s getting harder to look at an elderly person and feel that you’re experiencing a great moment. Instead, they’re recipients of our sympathy, and objects of charity. That’s why funding Social Security is the only political issue focused on seniors. And that’s women who want to advertise products or be newscasters on TV face-lift themselves silly. The value of being a senior citizen is fading. 

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Finding the joy in a world gone to the dogs – by Deborah Levine

 ( originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press)  

With the news being so depressing and alarming these days, is there any relief? There’s Russia and the murder of Putin protester Alexei Navalney, and the Middle East mess. Then there’s the US with 2024 having the second-highest number on record of mass killings and deaths to this point in a single year. Last year ended with 42 mass killings and 217 deaths. I’m guessing that the final numbers for 2024 will be even worse. My brain hurts and I’m sure that I’m not alone in looking for a ray of sunshine. 

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Is it just another day on the internet? – by Deborah Levine

(originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press)

My first reaction to the hacking attempts on my website was to wonder about the motivation behind it. Were the multiple failed login attempts related to the emails I just sent out  announcing an upcoming event about “Serving our Diverse Communities”? The event’s purpose is to highlight and honor those who serve and have them share their expertise. So, given its diversity element, could the motivation behind these attempts to mess with the back end of my website be at least partly political? 

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History and Art in Bluff View and beyond – by Deborah Levine

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Current debates about preserving history can be toxic, but our Bluff View Art District illustrates an important dimension to that debate: Art. One of Bluff View’s treasures is its oldest building, the Houston Museum of Decorative Arts. The museum’s collection of antique glass, porcelain and pottery is one of the finest in the world. And the story behind the collection is as fascinating as the artifacts themselves. 

Visiting the museum, I heard about Anna Safley Houston who was supposedly born in 1876. I say “supposedly” because written records were iffy back in the year that Alexander Bell invented the telephone and the art of glassworks was emerging. Born in a small rural town, Anna was an unlikely collector of that art which she stored in an East Ridge barn.

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