One of the marks of a good movie is the conversation it provokes after seeing it. “42,” the recently released biopic about Jackie Robinson’s breaking of Organized Baseball’s color line, qualifies as remarkable. Set in the post-World War II years of 1946-1947, the film shows the day-by-day racism Robinson endured as he fought to take [...]
“T. S. Eliot’s line `April is the cruelest month’ is often quoted approvingly but I resoundingly disagree,” writes baseball author and jazz journalist Lee Lowenfish in his latest blog. “After all, how can any month that begins with the return of the baseball season be cruel? And lately April has also been designated Jazz Appreciation [...]
If you were fortunate enough to snag a ticket to hear author Adam Gopnik at the Newport Beach Public Library on March 8, you got an earful. Speaking with a New Yorker’s hyperactive speed — though he never got ahead of his lucid thoughts – Gopnik shared his passion for the history, culture, and philosophy [...]
I met up recently with my baseball pal, Anna Newton. We two are comfortable in our disagreements: She follows the San Diego Padres, I follow the Angels. She prefers the National League, I like the American. Over lunch at Rose Bakery Café, I mentioned I was working on a column about gun violence. Right away [...]
Just when you think the political roiling inside the Beltway may settle down, moving Congress to actually get to work on the country’s issues, another distraction comes along. Last week’s was the Republican response by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida to President Obama’s State of the Union message. I’ve been following with interest the GOP’s [...]
Sarah Weddington gets around. In Nebraska she was presented with a condom labeled “Go, Big Red!” In Las Vegas her cabbie asked, “Aren’t you that abortion lady?” Which is why the Community Action Fund of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties invited Weddington to speak at a recent dinner in Costa Mesa commemorating [...]
For Henry Vandermeir, the days before President Obama’s inauguration were a Charles Dickens sort of week: both the best of times and the worst of times. On Jan. 14 he was elected chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County (DPOC). The next day he came down with what he told me was “the worst [...]
During a recent extended-family celebration, the boys under the age of 12 – and, to be accurate, some of the boys over the age of 21 – engaged in the sort of improvised martial arts encounters so beloved by that gender. As any mother of sons knows, a boy can create a weapon out of [...]
I savor the week between Christmas and the end of the year. We regularly attend a New Year’s retreat, where we discuss the issues of the day between strolls among the sand dunes of Monterey Bay, so I spend the days before we leave storing Christmas ornaments and sorting out the year’s memories, vowing to [...]
It’s mid-December, and I had hoped by now that we’d be enjoying a respite from last month’s elections and their political aftermath. Fat chance. Senate Republicans launched this year’s season of good will by torpedoing U.S. ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Not even the presence of 89-year-old former [...]
Orange County Updates