Tag archives: Facebook

Standing up to Dictators… and Facebook… to Save Democracy
By Gwyn Lurie   |   May 24, 2023

I don’t have many heroes. Maybe because I’m too easily disappointed. Or that just beneath my optimistic surface lives a somewhat jaded self. Or perhaps it’s simply that it’s hard to find heroes these days who stand up to the test of time, not to mention under the harsh glare of modern-day journalism. But when […]

Life Purpose?
By Robert Bernstein   |   May 24, 2022

Normalizing Atheism is an active Facebook page I recently joined. It is a surprisingly respectful forum for atheists to “come out” and for religious people to ask questions of atheists. On April 13, someone named Brian C. made this post: “I’ve been pondering something lately: Is it possible to live without meaning or purpose? If […]

Letters to the Editor
By Montecito Journal   |   January 21, 2021

Capitol Offense Like most Americans, I was distressed last week when rioters at the instigation of Donald Trump invaded and trashed the Capitol. It was even more upsetting for my wife, Mary, who worked twelve years on Capitol Hill. I covered Congress for Ridder Publications before going to The Washington Post and have been in […]

Conscious Consumption AS Social Activism
By Rinaldo Brutoco   |   July 9, 2020

There is a collective myth of how America started out as a haven for religious freedom. While there’s some truth to that, in fact, America started as a business. The first settlers in Jamestown were commercially organized as The Virginia Company, and granted a charter in 1604 to exploit New World resources for the British […]

Upstanders, Bystanders, and Grandstanders
By Gwyn Lurie   |   June 11, 2020

There’s so much to unravel from last week. And a lot to thread back together. In the much maligned 2020, I think there’s more news, coming from more sources, than any of us can efficiently process. To make matters harder, my theory is we have at least two different nations happening at the same time. […]

A Thing or Not a Thing, That is the Question
By Gwyn Lurie   |   May 14, 2020

Recently and apparently out of nowhere, one of my daughters got “blocked” by one of her closest “friends.” For those of you who don’t have screenagers and are missing out on a front row seat to millennial and Gen Z social mores, “blocking” is the Boomer equivalent of “unfriending” on Facebook. It’s what a “friend” […]

A Bias for Bias
By Gwyn Lurie   |   January 23, 2020

A story you may have missed while you were busy celebrating the holidays was the December 31 closing of the gargantuan (half million square foot) “Newseum” – just steps from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue – after 11 years and ten million visitors. Various news outlets decried the poignancy and irony of the 450 […]