The smoke is rising in the shadows overhead / my glass is almost empty*
*from "Song for a Winter's Night" by Gordon Lightfoot. In the nation to our north—the one that has given us Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen,...
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Begging no questions, but raising a few.
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Chuck Radda
- Apr 26
- 2 min
Biden nudges his hat into the ring. To quote the Mandalorians: "This is the way."
I am not overjoyed at the prospect of another Biden candidacy. Still, the systematic erosion of human rights by the current version of...
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Chuck Radda
- Apr 24
- 3 min
In the bubble, the vision is clear. Seeing outside it is the hard part.
Last week I tried to enter the bubble. The gun bubble—that hazy, somewhat blurred, and always bulletproof sphere that protects the gun...
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Chuck Radda
- Apr 12
- 2 min
The GOP and voting: complicate it, destabilize it, ignore it.
The reinstatement of Justin Jones, the Democrat from the Tennessee House of Representatives ousted from his position for a raucous...
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Chuck Radda
- Apr 8
- 3 min
Dr. King's "arc of the moral universe bending toward justice” is fading before our eyes.
In some places—like Tennessee—it has become invisible. It would be pleasant to avow that since the election of Joseph Biden, we no longer...
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Chuck Radda
- Apr 2
- 3 min
If Trump is on your playlist, you should probably skip past this commentary.
First, let me admit something: I didn't listen to the whole "song." I also didn't research the performer's claim that "And Justice for...
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Chuck Radda
- Mar 15
- 3 min
The MAGA Conspiratorial Coloring Book–you can color outside the lines: there aren't any.
Not that long ago, QAnon was the ultimate example of foolishness. Even in a world that loves conspiracies, this cult of dimwitted...
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Chuck Radda
- Mar 3
- 3 min
If the opposite of woke is ignorantly unaware or virtually unconscious, I think I'll stay a-woke.
One year, early in my teaching career, the students—like those in most schools—were called upon to elect a class president. In the week...
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Chuck Radda
- Feb 27
- 3 min
Putin: working his way up in the pantheon of tyrants
Vladimir Putin may very well live in the darkness of a world that exists only in his mind—the world of some ethereal Mother Russia, where...
11 views0 comments
Chuck Radda
- Feb 24
- 3 min
Of masks, paper towels, Fox News, Kevin McCarthy, and D.C. tourism...for starters
—Everything. Everywhere. Almost All at Once The Cochran Library report has finally put to rest the question of whether or not masks...
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Chuck Radda
- Feb 20
- 2 min
A really, really, really good question.
Imagine you're sitting in a theater as Hamlet arrives at its pivotal point and the protagonist ponders whether or not to go on living. He...
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Chuck Radda
- Feb 10
- 2 min
It looks like the apocalypse in CGI, but it's just a real city in Turkey.
Most of us are accustomed, maybe even inured, to seeing earthquake damage in distant countries and telling ourselves—oh well, poor...
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Chuck Radda
- Feb 2
- 2 min
Rallying behind DeSantis to stop Trump? Why not give that some more thought?
I will not deny that Donald Trump did more to hurt America's reputation and the American ethos both at home and on the world stage than...
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Chuck Radda
- Jan 18
- 3 min
Question: Have you no sense of decency? Answer: Can I think about that?
It is difficult these days to mark a low ebb in politics. We stand on the shore and watch as the tide goes out and out and out, and then...
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Chuck Radda
- Jan 9
- 4 min
Business as usual; danger as usual.
Today marks a week since an NFL player from the Buffalo Bills, Damar Hamlin, died on the football field and was quickly brought back to...
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Chuck Radda
- Dec 21, 2022
- 3 min
His only desire was to right the ship, but Gerald Ford may have left a legacy we can do without.
In the 1980 film Airplane, the Lloyd Bridges character says to a concerned female passenger, "Your husband and the others are alive, but...
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Chuck Radda
- Dec 19, 2022
- 3 min
You can't go home again, but you can stop by.
This past Friday, I had the pleasure of participating in an event called Learning Adventure Day at the high school in Plainville, where I...
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Chuck Radda
- Dec 11, 2022
- 3 min
A British comedy about a flawed doctor underscores America's healthcare failings.
Doc Martin, recently concluded its decade-long, somewhat disjointed, but consistently entertaining run on various television venues. Like...
18 views0 comments
Chuck Radda
- Dec 6, 2022
- 2 min
The Deplorables, Part 2: two million Americans can be wrong.
Ever since Hillary Clinton had to walk back her use of "deplorable" to label Trump supporters in 2016, all of us never-Trumpers have been...
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Chuck Radda
- Nov 29, 2022
- 3 min
The Deplorables have been replaced by the Delusionals, and we are no better for it.
After every mass shooting, Republicans and gun nuts (you won't need a Venn diagram to see the overlap) have complained ad nauseam about...
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