Almost exactly 25 years ago, in October of 1991, I was living in a small apartment in the Rockridge district of Oakland, right at the base of the hills. I had just started a new job, and had rented an apartment on the third floor of a building that was about a 25 minute walk […]
Think Dream Play: Will Rogers never met this guy
Not sure if it was Machiavelli or Michael Corleone who originated the phrase, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” but it’s been on my mind. The concept came in handy in – of all places – public school! When I was working as a high school principal, I needed to have my ear […]
Bruce Robinson: Ella’s story
(This article was originally published in the Contra Costa Times on Dec. 4, 1999) It has been 36 years since Dr. Martin Luther King captured the hearts and minds of America with his “I have a dream” speech. Judging by the angry response to the passage of Proposition 209 in California not long ago, it […]
Matt Talbot: Reflections on two long wars
This coming Sunday will be the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is hard to believe that 15 years have come and gone since that terrible morning in September of 2001. I awoke that morning to a world that seemed unmoored from any reference point of understanding, any prior experience in my life. The […]
Matt Talbot: The task before the Republican Party
Given the chaos consuming the Republican Party in the wake of Donald Trump’s nomination this year, I think future historians will write about the 2016 presidential election as the year the Republican Party’s internal contradictions finally came to the surface and consumed the party from the inside, leaving it an all-but-empty shell. The Republican Party […]
Bruce Robinson: It takes a village to make lives matter
It should have surprised no one when, on Aug. 19, Donald Trump announced his outreach to African-American voters. He did it by tapping into the same “village” spirit that made America great in the first place. First, he reminded African-Americans they have been consistently and deliberately ignored by the Democratic Party for more than 50 […]
Matt Talbot: Life, death and middle age
“The word nostalgia is learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of nóstos, meaning ‘homecoming,’ a Homeric word, and álgos, meaning ‘pain, ache’” –Wikipedia Nostalgia is the besetting fault of middle age, and I am not immune to infection by its sweet melancholy. I sometimes find myself driving by my old middle school in the […]
Notes from 30,000 feet: A break from politics and going to the movies
If there is one thing I think we all can agree on this political season it is this: November can’t come soon enough. With that in mind, I took a break from work and politics before flying home this past week and managed to watch an old movie favorite; “Casablanca,” which contains one of the […]
Matt Talbot: One black life that mattered
Two of my best friends growing up in Richmond were the Stanley brothers, Sertha and Ray. Sertha was about a year older than me (the same age as my late older brother Mark), and Ray was my age. For most of my childhood, Ray and I were inseparable. On the other side of the Southern […]
Devon Minnema: United States and international relations surrounding the South China Sea
Despite all the partisanship and sales-pitching that was at the national conventions of the two major political parties, neither party seems to want to address the wholesale issues with America’s current diplomatic quandaries. While Donald Trump talks, however spasmodically, of restoring respect for American military might overseas, he often neglects to talk about why so […]