Oct 12, 1948–May 3, 2022
“If I am not for myself,
who will be for me?
And, if I am only for myself,
what am I?
And if not now,
when?”
–Hillel, the great sage.
Featured
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LSD Goddess Joanna Harcourt-Smith
Timothy Leary wrote me from his jail cell. The adjoining cell contained Charles Manson. Shortly after I received the letter, I visited Timothy next to the vending machines. I had spent months squiring around the beautiful, French speaking socialite Joanna Harcourt-Smith who was next to Timothy in Kabul, Afghanistan when G.Gordon Liddy, on urgent orders…
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Ani Ma’Amin: This is what I believe
Most recently, my “expertise” has resulted in my efforts to affirm Eli Weisel’s insistance that being a Jew ( surrounded as I had been in the 1950s by tattooed survivors of the Holocaust) requires us as Jews to end genocide of whatever form; specifically in Yemen, the Mayanmar region of what used to be Burma,…
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If by Rudyard Kipling
In 1964 my mother Miriam met a man at a convention in the Catskills for Hebrew educators. They fell in love instantly and decided to marry .Oscar shortly after became my third stepfather. At the time I was a sophomore at Cheltenham High School in suburban Philadelphia. As seemed typical of my development toward adulthood…
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Grandfather (that’s me) relocating to NYC to save my life at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
It is New Year’s Eve. I am now a resident in room 822B of the Queens NewYork Regal Heights Nursing Home and Physical Rehab Center. I am freaking out a bit. Writing about architeture. Meanwhile, in the bed next to me is a 90 year old man who cannot speak.The good news is I…
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Why I relate ending hunger in US America to writing about my cancer survival for The New York Times
The current shameful problem that children are starving in US America because they are poor is easily solved Ending hunger in US America is easily solvable Hunger in America was easily solvable 44 years ago when I published “Food Stamp Program, As It Is, Has Very Few Friends” in the NYT News of the Week…
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My love hate relationship with The New York Times 2018
Civility in public discourse When I came home from the hospital 70 years ago, The New York Times was delivered to the door of my parents’ apartment on East 88th Street and read religiously. Ever since then, despite frequently moving from one end of the country to the next, the Times has remained my hometown paper. …
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Radio hate monger of the 1930s Father Coughlin returns to Fox News
Charles Edward Coughlin (/ˈkɒɡlɪn/ KOG-lin; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979), commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Roman Catholic priest who was based in the United States near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Little Flower church. He was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience: during the 1930s, an estimated 30…
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A fine romance with no kisses
A Fine Romance Frank Sinatra A fine romance, with no kissesA fine romance, my friend this isWe should be like a couple of hot tomatoesBut you’re as cold as yesterday’s mashed potatoesA fine romance, you won’t nestleA fine romance, you won’t wrestleI might as well play bridgeWith my old maid auntI haven’t got a chanceThis…
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The US Needs a New Capitol City: Covid Agenda Item
Joel Solkoff’s Column Vol. VI, Number 5 DATELINE Thursday, November 19, 2020. Williamsport Pennsylvania, a town of 28,000 people (a treasure trove of architecture) 178 miles southeast over rotten roads to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall where my fathers (mothers did not apply) ratified the Constitution of the United States.Reality here in the county seat of Lycoming…