Time to Think

A History Lesson By Hank Silverberg     It is chilling, and one of the most disturbing, episodes in the whole illegal immigration crackdown that has been stepped up by the current administration.       More than two thousand children, who came into the country illegally with one or both parents between April and May, were separated from their parents. They have been placed in holding centers while the adults are placed in detention centers awaiting deportation proceedings. Most of those parents are seeking political asylum here because of unrest or gang violence in their home country.        Why is this shocking? Many of the parents were told as they were separated that the children were being taken so they could get a bath. No other explanation was provided.     For those who know history, particularly for Jews, that explanation has a chilling echo. It was standard procedure at Nazi concentration camps ...

Move along, there’s nothing to see here By Hank Silverberg                                      What was in the news this week?   Let’s see, President Trump ditched our long-standing allies like a hot potato at the G-7 Summit and went off to meet with North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un, that volcano is reshaping the coast line of Hawaii’s big island, and the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup.       Certainly, those were all news stories. But we also heard a lot from Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and plenty of speculation about what Bob Mueller is doing or not doing in the Russia investigation. Much of that information was inside politics.       Here are some stories you may have missed. The ones that got lost in all the screaming, pontificating and speculation about the others. There was some reporting on them, but the cur...

Words Matter By Hank Silverberg       Each semester in the first meeting with my Public Speaking class, I tell my students that the theme for the class is “Words Matter.” How they speak, the words they use and how they use them can make them effective public speakers, or someone who no one wants to listen to.                                               T his week I find myself wondering if that message needs to spread to newscasters, pundits, celebrities and politicians on a national level.                         Fi rst, there was Roseanne Barr. Her comments about Valarie Jarret were clearly racist.   Any other interpretation simply doesn’t hold up. You can argue whether the punishment, losing her ABC show, fits the offense, but you can’t argue what the words meant. Her foll...

Memorial Day, the Flag and the NFL By Hank Silverberg        I put the flag up on the pole outside my home this Memorial Day weekend. I don’t fly the flag every day, just on significant holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, July 4th, Labor Day and Election Day.   (My flagpole)               It is not the flag that I am honoring right now, though. It’s the thousands of men and women who gave what Lincoln called their “last full measure of devotion” for what the flag stands for—Freedom.              M emorial Day honors combat war dead, from Robert Munroe, one of eight who died at the Battle of Lexington in 1775, to 22-year-old Army Specialist Gabriel Conde of Loveland, Colorado, who was killed last month in Afghanistan. As Lincoln said at Gettysburg when dedicating the 1863 battlefield, “it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”  ...

     A Nation of Immigrants                                 By Hank Silverberg       Once again, the ugliness of racism, bigotry and ignorance has found its way into the ongoing debate over immigration laws. The catalyst this time was a comment from President Trump that was widely quoted out of context.   Answering a question about MS -13, the violent street gang that has infested Latin America and many American cities large and small, the President called them “animals.”           R eaction to that comment brought out the ugliness. It was mis-interpreted by many as a reference to Hispanic immigrants in general, and for once the President had a legitimate beef.   That’s not what he said.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aib5Ts2cDI8&feature=youtu.be      A few news organ...