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A Chance For Peace?                      #357 By Hank Silverberg Commentary I have spent much of the summer intentionally distracted from what is going on in the world. Much of it is depressing, so I focused on baseball. My Red Sox had a pretty good season. I am saddened that they did not go past the first round of the playoffs, mainly because I now have to pay attention to the real world again.  Israel and Hamas will be having indirect negotiations in Egypt this week that could lead to another ceasefire and a hostage release. A new peace deal in the Middle East is being touted as the best possibility to end the war in Gaza and bring some peace to Israel and the Palestinian people. I'd like to write it's a good plan that might work, but I can't. Here are five reasons it is likely to fail: 1) The plan relies on Hamas to return all the Israeli hostages, give up their arms, and submit to some kind of international monitors in...
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Are You Embarrassed?                         #356 By Hank Silverberg Commentary I am embarrassed for the United States. I have tried over recent weeks to find other things to comment on besides Donald J. Trump, but this week that is impossible. His appearance at the United Nations  was appalling.  (UN.org) First there was the elevator SNAFU. Was it planned or just a coincidence? That's really irrelevant. Mr. Trump's reaction to it, and the subsequent failure of the teleprompter, were juvenile. A better man would not have even mentioned it or joked about it. But no, Trump took offense. Someone should be "fired" or "arrested", two of his favorite words.  But I will let that go for now because the speech, without the teleprompter, was an embarrassing display of fiction, arrogance and authoritarianism worthy of Benito Mussolini or Nikita Khrushchev.  Those of you who have read this blog on a regular basis know t...
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                                                                                                                          #355 Vote Early, Vote Often  By Hank Silverberg  My wife and I cast our vote in Virginia's governor's race this past Friday, the first day of early voting.  This may seem to be a bit of paranoia, but I was really concerned that between now and Election Day, November 4th, there would be an effort to take our vote away. It is clear that the Trump administration is doing everything it can to limit voting, or gerrymander voting districts so that Democrats remain in the minority in Congress. And that threat of some votes not counting may become real in 2026....
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A House Divided                                    #354 By Hank Silverberg  Commentary  "A house divided against itself, cannot stand. " Those words from a famous Abraham Lincoln speech of 1858 came to mind this week as I watched and listened to the reactions to the assassination of conservative political activist, Charlie Kirk. I didn't know Mr. Kirk, though we had exchanged an occasional post on X from time to time over the last few years. And let me say clearly we did not agree on pretty much every political issue you can think of. But political violence in the United States, though not new by any means, is deplorable and unacceptable.    What strikes me most about the reaction to Kirk's assassination was the rampant and rapid spread of misinformation on the internet about the motive for his murder, even after the suspected killer was found and taken into custody.  Consp...
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The Health of Nations                                                                   #353 By Hank Silverberg  Commentary  My wife and I got our annual flu shots this week. We wanted Covid-19 booster shots as well, but we were told this year, when the booster shot is in short supply, you have to be over 65 and get a prescription from your doctor. We plan to follow up on that. We both had mild cases of Covid during the pandemic, mild only because we had gotten the vaccine. Otherwise we might have been included in the 1.2 million people in the United States who died from Covid.  (Iron Lung machine used for Polio victims before the vaccine) Having written this, I am deeply troubled by the trend right now to ignore science and medical research that have proven the effectiveness of vaccines. This a...
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Doubt                                                  #352 By Hank Silverberg  Commentary Do I get another Covid-19 booster or not? Should school districts be working harder to convince all parents to get their children vaccinated to prevent measles? Is any advice from the Centers for Disease Control good advice anymore?  Frankly, there is no way of knowing, because the agency has been stripped of the scientists and doctors who do know the answers to those questions, and their research has been eviscerated.  The Trump administration has set back medical care in this county at least 50 years, maybe more.  Vital research on cancer, which had been conducted at some of our premier universities, has been stopped or slowed down because the federal funding was eliminated. Why? Because the folks in the administration think admitting minorities, more w...
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