03 Wednesday Jun 2015
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, Family and Friends
Sheryl Sandburg, the Chief Operating Office of Facebook, the author of the 2013 book Lean In, and the mother of two children, has just posted the reflections below on her Facebook page, following the end of her 30 day mourning period for her husband David Goldberg, 47, who died in a recent accident.
27 Monday Apr 2015
Tags
"Man of La Mancha", "The Impossible Dream", FOTONNA, Hope & Reassurance, Tent of Nations North America, William Plitt
The Impossible Dream
by William Plitt
A month ago, at end of weeks of a seemingly endless winter, I gambled and
bought three tickets to “Man of La Mancha”, a presentation by the Washington Shakespeare Company at the Sidney Harmon Theatre in the City. I was needing some “lift”, both in attitude and altitude, and hoped to that “lift” in light-hearted theatrical/musical entertainment- a distraction from our work too!
26 Thursday Mar 2015
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop
Tags
"Return to Mylai", Katie Orlinsky, Mylai massacre, Symour M. Hersch, The New Yorker, Vietnam War
Pham Thanh Cong, the director of the My Lai Museum, was eleven at the time of the massacre. His mother and four siblings died. “We forgive, but we do not forget,” he said. Credit Photograph by Katie Orlinsky – The New Yorker
Having recently returned from a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia and being continually disturbed, and sometimes mystified, about the US role and legacy in that part of the world, I was attracted to the current issue of the New Yorker and Seymour M. Hersh’s article Return to My Lai: The Scene of the Crime – A reporter’s journey to My Lai and the secrets of the past.
Hersh, as you may remember, particularly if you ‘came of age’ during the Vietnam War, broke the story about the My Lai massacre, which, in part, led to a reexamination of our role in that war and in that part of the world.
Now, 47 years later, Hersh returns to Vietnam and specifically to My Lai and discovers things he did not know when he uncovered and wrote about the My Lai massacre.
Check out: Return to My Lai
Also, in a companion ‘article’, there are photographs by New Yorker photojournalist Katie Orlinsky, who accompanied Hersh on this trip. Check out: The Memory of My Lai.
04 Wednesday Mar 2015
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, Family and Friends
(Todd Endo, 73, portrait by Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Todd Endo, a long time friend, was featured in an article in the Washington Post last week. In A Japanese American in Selma, he describes how a trip to Selma 50 years ago changed his life.
Todd is returning to Selma this week to compare 1965 to now and “to make a connection again.”
I look forward to hearing about his return trip to a place that had such an impact on him and suspect he’ll find a very different Selma.
Or maybe not.
20 Friday Feb 2015
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, Go Sox
Tags
" J.R. Moehringer, "Open", "The Final Walk Off", "The Tender Bar", A-Rod, Alex Rodriquez, Derek Jeter, ESPN The Magazine, Pulitzer Prize Winning author
PEOPLE HATE HIM. Boy, wow, do they hate him. At first they loved him, and then they were confused by him, and then they were irritated by him, and now they straight-up loathe.
More often than not, the mention of Alex Rodriguez in polite company triggers one of a spectrum of deeply conditioned responses. Pained ugh. Guttural groan. Exaggerated eye roll. Hundreds of baseball players have been caught using steroids, including some of the game’s best-known and most beloved names, but somehow Alex Rodriguez has become the steroid era’s Lord Voldemort. Ryan Braun? Won an MVP, got busted for steroids, twice, called the tester an anti-Semite, lied his testes off, made chumps of his best friends, including Aaron Rodgers, and still doesn’t inspire a scintilla of the ill will that follows Rodriguez around like a nuclear cloud.
from The Education of Alex Rodriquez by J.R. Moehringer
If you don’t know the name or writing of J.R. Moehringer, you’re in for a treat. He won a Pulitzer Prize for feature newspaper writing in 2000 and at least two of his books over the past few years have been among my favorite reads of the year(s): The Tender Bar, a wonderful memoir of Moehringer’s own growing up and Open, the most honest and most informative sports memoir (about Andre Agassi) I’ve ever read. (Agassi’s name is on the cover of the book, but Moehringer wrote it). He also wrote what I think was the best tribute to Derek Jeter in his ESPN article The Final Walk Off.
If you do know of him, then know that he has once again produced an article that goes beyond what all other writers have produced about a current story in the news – A-Rod’s return to baseball after his 162 game suspension.
19 Thursday Feb 2015
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest
I just happened across an essay written today by Oliver Sacks in which he announces that he has an incurable cancer and is facing death. He tells us how he hopes to face his remaining time alive.
Sacks has long been one of the men I’ve greatly admired.
His essay, My Own Life, is eloquent and affecting.
18 Wednesday Feb 2015
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop
I was quite surprised when I was led to a NY Times article yesterday by a particularly astute (and younger) former colleague of Ellen’s (thanx Matt Stoller) that basically said what most people think is the case about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is not the case.
At least not since 2007.
The article tells us that even though income inequality is high historically, “The income of the top 1 percent – both the level and the share of overall income – still hasn’t returned to its 2007 peak. Their average income is about 20 per cent below that peak.”
While this may be more of a statement about who lost more in the period between 2007 – 2010, there is much in this article that is worthy of consideration.
Take a look at the article for yourselves:
Inequality Has Actually Not Risen Since the Financial Crisis, by David Leonhardt, NY Times, Feb. 17, 2014, p.3.
07 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop
Tags
"Rolling Stone", "The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JP Morgan Chase's Worst Nightmare", "Why the Democratic Party Acts the Way It Does", Matt Stoller, Matt Taibbi, “The New Democrats and the Return to Power”
Readers of this website probably know that I am as passionate about US politics and international affairs as I am about baseball, family, travel, and various other ‘escapes and pleasures.’
However, I have largely chosen not to make MillersTime a forum for my views on politics and international affairs. While I have not specifically tried to hide my views on these two subjects (I did write Walking. Knocking. Talking, about spending a week on a ‘get out the vote’ campaign for Obama in Ohio in 2012, for example), I only occasionally post in The Outer Loop and Articles of Interest sections of this website. And when I do post a comment, or a link to an article, it is because I think there is something of value that transcends the usual partisan politics.
04 Tuesday Nov 2014
Two very good documentaries, one just released and the second soon to be released, worthy of your attention:
29 Monday Sep 2014
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, Go Sox
Tags
" J.R. Moehringer, "Derek Jeter Plays Last Game at Yankee Stadium", "Hub Fans Bid Kid ADieu", baseball, Boston Red Sox, Derek Jeter, Fenway Park, John Updike, New York Yankees, Ted Williams, Yankee Stadium
On September 28, 1960, for his final at bat in Fenway Park, Ted Williams hit a home run in the 8th inning of a game the Sox eventually won. Fifty-four years later, for his final at bat at Yankee Stadium, Derek Jeter hit a single, driving in the winning run for the Yankees in the bottom of the 9th.
Neither of those at bats could change disappointing seasons for the Sox or the Yankees.
Yet both of those at bats will long be remembered.
John Updike, a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, described what happened in Fenway in his superb Hub Fans Bids Kid Adieu. If you’ve never read this piece, you’re in for a treat. If you have read it and chose to reread it, you’re also in for a treat.
And although there has been massive coverage of Derek Jeter’s final Yankee Stadium at bat and retirement in general, I offer an equally wonderful and worthy essay about Jeter, The Final Walk Off, written by another Pulitzer Prize winning author, J.R. Moehringer, that was published just a few days ago by ESPN.
20 Saturday Sep 2014
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest
Tags
"The Atlantic", "What Happens When We All Live to 100?", "Why I Hope to Die at 75", Aging, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Gregg Easterbrook, Increased Life Expectancy
The October 2014 issue of The Atlantic has two articles that focus on the issues raised by our increased life expectancy. Though they seem to come to different conclusions, each author and article gives the reader much to consider:
Gregg Easterbrook: What Happens When We All Live to 100: If life-expectancy trends continue, that future may be near, transforming society in surprising and far-reaching ways.
Esekiel J. Emanuel: Why I Hope to Die at 75: An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly.
26 Tuesday Aug 2014
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest
A friend sent me the article linked to below.
Since many of you who ‘read’ MillersTime are (have been) teachers or have worked in education and many more of you are involved with schools in one way or another, I thought I’d pass along this wonderful example of what one individual is doing in her classroom.
It should only take you a few minutes to read.
Feel free to pass it on to others.
One Teacher’s Brilliant Strategy to Stop Bullying, by Glennon Doyle Melton.
13 Friday Jun 2014
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop
The title of this section of MillersTime is The Outer Loop, referring to the outer loop of the Washington Beltway.
It’s meant to be a forum I use to comment, on occasion, about what is happening in our nation’s capital as well as beyond it. It is also a place where I can link to articles, ideas, and thoughts about issues other than baseball, family and friends, or escapes and pleasures.
Friends often ask Ellen or myself to explain what’s happening in Washington, as if our living inside the Beltway might give us some understanding of just what’s going on here or what is going to happen.
When you’re deeply lost in the trees, it’s certainly hard to know what the forest really looks like.
Note the surprise this week by virtually everyone within the Beltway of the upset of Majority Leader Eric Cantor by a college professor in the VA 7th District primary.
02 Monday Jun 2014
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop
In a previous post, No Place to Hide, I wrote about my reaction to listening to a talk by Glenn Greenwald and reading his recently released book on Edward Snowden, on the revelations from the disclosures of NSA documents and on Greenwald’s assessment of what has occurred.
In comments and emails, some of you immediately praised Greenwald and Snowden, some of you said the MillersTime post gave you pause for thinking and/or reevaluating, and some questioned the damage that they felt both Snowden and Greenwald had done to our country.
Hopefully, some of you in all three groups will have time to read Greenwald’s book for yourselves. (If you do, please add a Comment on MillersTime or send me your thoughts by email.)
Today’s post is a link to a lengthy interview done by NBC’s Brian Williams with Snowden. It gives you a chance to see, hear and perhaps evaluate this 29-year-old for yourself.
27 Tuesday May 2014
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop
I’m a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. For nearly all my life I would have said I’m a teacher, but I guess I really can’t say that anymore. Now I have to introduce myself as a United States senator, tho I still feel a small jolt of surprise whenever I say that.
This is my story, and it’s a story born of gratitude.
A few weeks ago I went with Ellen and some friends to see and hear Elizabeth Warren talk about her just published book A Fighting Chance.
Over the last few days I took the time to read that book, the tenth one she’s written.
In her appearance, Elizabeth (Betsy as her friends apparently call her) was mostly speaking to the choir. The audience didn’t need too much introduction to this new political face. Some had known her for years, some had been her students, some had worked with her, some had worked for her campaign in Massachusetts, and some had been won over by what they had learned of her in the last year or so.
I fit into that last category.