Toward the back of the UC Berkeley campus is a building that is storied for its utter, hideous ugliness. It is called Wurster Hall, and was designed in the aptly-named “brutalist” style. It is, astonishingly, the place that the University trains architects. During a recent visit to the campus with a couple friends, I remarked […]
Matt Talbot: Race, Democrats and the South
I concluded last week’s column with the following: “…I believe that the Democratic Party needs to do far more for working-class voters – and not just in terms of discrete policies they can point to, but getting reacquainted with the 70 percent of America that does not have a college degree, and whose incomes have […]
Matt Talbot: The rhymes of history
Between 1845 and 1852, over a million Irish men, women and children starved to death in an event referred to in Irish Gaelic as An Gorta Mór – “The Great Hunger.” Many Irish starved in their farmhouses and in the fields; others on the road to cities, where the authorities had promised relief. Many who […]
Letters: Matt’s inspiring reflections
Matt’s inspiring reflections What a relief to turn to the editorial page of the Benicia Herald on Friday, March 24 to find the wonderful column by Matt Talbot. I enjoyed Mr. Talbot’s reflections and insights so much, particularly his commentary about the child’s birthday party at the rest home and his nostalgic return to his […]
Matt Talbot: Some thoughts from the road
I’ve mentioned before that I drive for one of the car sharing services to help make ends meet while I work on a book about my experiences growing up in Richmond. A few days ago I had a passenger who told me about her niece, who had turned 6 years old a couple months ago. […]
Matt Talbot: The absurdity of despair
“Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.” –Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City” Have you noticed how green the hills across the water are? I take Mom to lunch on Wednesdays, and afterward this week we took a drive around the Bay Area, and everywhere we went the hills were […]
Matt Talbot: Matt’s ideal world
Rather than spend words in this week’s column decrying the latest mismanagement by the clown show currently being run out of the big house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in our nation’s capital, I thought I’d actually talk about what America would look like, were Americans irresponsible enough to elect me president, and assuming I had […]
Matt Talbot: What is the right size of a government?
In Catholic social teaching, there is an organizing principle called “subsidiarity.” Subsidiarity means that societal needs ought to be addressed as close to the problem as possible. For example, if there is a pothole in the street outside your house, you wouldn’t call your Senator to complain about it. You would notify the Benicia Public […]
Matt Talbot: Some thoughts on a massacre, 4 years later
One refrain heard from the NRA after every mass shooting incident by a lone deranged gunman is that it is “too soon” to have a political discussion about guns and gun control – that to have that discussion is to “politicize a tragedy.” Well, it has been a little over four years since Adam Lanza […]
Matt Talbot: Godwin’s Law overturned on appeal
Godwin’s Law is, in the words of Wikipedia, “an Internet adage which asserts that ‘As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1’—that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler. “…there […]