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    As we mark the first anniversary of Dobbs, it’s important to prepare for this fall’s off-year elections. Roe caught pro-lifers off-guard in 1973 because, prior to that decision, abortion policy had been fought out almost exclusively at the state level. Roe suddenly... Read More →

  I had not been to visit my parents in more than four years when I finally made it back a few months ago. I was last down home in early 2019; we had said goodbye hoping to meet around the same time in 2020. A pandemic intervened. The world turned upside-down. Death.... Read More →

  There was a major freak-out when shortly after the fall of Roe Senator Lindsay Graham proposed a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks. I myself thought it was poor timing and impolitic. The pro-life stance had been about states’ rights, and the sudden change in focus... Read More →

  When my two sons were learning their catechism, I would joke that the most important of the Ten Commandments was the fourth: Honor thy father and thy mother. Some 20 years later, as I enter the Medicare phase of life, I recite for them (more seriously) the sage words of... Read More →

    June 19 is Father’s Day. It will be the first Father’s Day in nearly fifty years when states have not been constrained by Roe v. Wade (and its progeny) from protecting fathers’ rights. Few remember that the 1973 Roe decision legalizing abortion represented such a... Read More →

  If Pope Celestine V is familiar at all to us today, it’s because his name came up in 2013 during the resignation of Benedict XVI. As one of only a handful of popes who had previously abdicated, the erstwhile Peter of Morrone was perhaps the most hapless selection to the... Read More →

  A few weeks ago, I attended the world premier of “Tomo ni Ikiru: Shoka Kanazawa Shoko,” a documentary about the life and work of Kanazawa Shoko, the world’s greatest living calligrapher. The title means “Living Side by Side.” During opening remarks, the film’s director... Read More →

  My father was a master grade electrician and for a while he worked at the Ballantine brewing facility in Newark, N.J. Once, during a family car trip, he pointed it out as we passed by. I remember a huge expanse of buildings and cylindrical structures. He said an important... Read More →

  The turning point came when Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey was denied a chance to speak at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York. Ordinarily, the ranking elected Democrat from such a large and important state would be a natural choice to address the... Read More →

    Though it may be known for showers, a tempest broke out in late April on social media over emails that leading retailers (including DoorDash, Kay Jewelers, Hallmark, and Levi’s) sent to customers offering them the opportunity to “opt out” of potentially “triggering”... Read More →