Gerry Goldstein

August is nearly upon us, so the best advice is to lock your doors, lower the shades, and pretend nobody’s home. Because you know that at this point in the gardening season a neighbor is sure to stop by with a bulging bagful of home-grown squash. When this happens, at least give credit to the […]

The pundits and TV talking heads have recently bandied about a relatively new term, “asymmetrical war.” As it suggests, this refers to a conflict in which one of the combatants is militarily far stronger than the other. The term was created in 1975 by the late political scientist Andrew J. R. Mack, whose seminal essay […]

Psychologically speaking, I am off-kilter. I suffer from a variety of maladies, including tyrannophobia, authoritophobia, politicophobia, and TAD. Coincidentally (or not), these conditions arose concurrently with the ascendance of His Royal Vileness, Donald J. Trump, to the highest office in our land. That’s where TAD –Trump Anxiety Disorder – comes in. Never before have I […]

Abraham Lincoln was a chump. Oh, that’s not my opinion, but in one respect it seems to be Donald Trump’s.   As we have learned, Qatar gave Trump a $400 million Boeing 747 for use as a new Air Force One. When he leaves office, he said, he plans to transfer the aircraft, which some describe […]

The Civil War was new in 1861 when Brooklyn’s 14th Regiment, soon bound for battle, heard these words from abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher: “A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation’s flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself.” That’s still food for thought in 2026, as this American prepares to exchange his wind-worn […]

Our government recently reported performing a “double tap” in September on a boat suspected of transporting drugs in the Caribbean. This was some tap – two missile strikes that instantly killed nine men and then blew apart two survivors clinging to the wreckage. So there, in the words of “War” Secretary Pete Hegseth, we have the deployment […]

An ancient Jewish proverb asserts, “As soap is to the body, so laughter is to the soul.” As we anticipate the start of a new year after an old one fraught with dysfunction, this provides us grist for a crucial resolution: to make time for laughter. The soap analogy is particularly fitting for our time, […]

I don’t know about you, but I keep getting my generations mixed up.  That’s easy to do these days, what with pop culture references constantly bombarding us with the opinions and preferences of people belonging to Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z. Throw in Millennials, Gen Alpha and Gen Beta and I’m lost in […]

In a democracy, citizens are guaranteed certain rights, and we can read them just as they appear in the Constitution: –  Political power emanates from the people. – All…are equal before the law.  – Officials are servants of the whole community and not of a party. But wait: Those guarantees are taken not from our own […]

Teaching moments pop up often, but sometimes they vanish too quickly for us to learn the intended lesson.   So it was recently at the supermarket entrance, where a 10-year-old girl stood beside a sign hand-lettered in red crayon, asking for donations so she could pay for dance lessons. With her mother sitting expressionless behind […]

I hate that Charlie Kirk was mercilessly shot down. But I also hate some poisonous ideas he embraced and sought to sow among our nation’s youth. So there, in the words right above, may be “hate speech.”  And if Pam Bondi thinks so, it could be enough to get me collared. At least, that’s how […]

Our dictatorial president, determined to erase any hint of American history that offends his relentless jingoism, could learn a lot from the day 70 years ago when they buried an affable 14-year-old boy in Chicago. A horrific series of events began when, visiting relatives in Mississippi, he walked into a grocery store to buy bubble […]

Whenever a new statue is unveiled, you can be sure opinion will divide on whether it hits the mark. And that’s been the case since the Patriots recently introduced their new iteration of legendary Tom Brady, a bronze colossus that with its five-foot base stands 17 feet tall. The image by Massachusetts sculptor Jeff Buccacio, […]

It is 2 a.m., and the household is blissfully and restfully asleep. Suddenly, filtered though the haze of sleep and dreams, comes a familiar and unwelcome whisper: Chirp. Maybe it’s just imagination; wait a few moments. And then: Chirp! When a third chirp follows, all grounds for denial evaporate: These are the dreaded overnight announcements that the […]

We are long past July’s iconic holiday, the Fourth, but coming up on the 17th is one of lesser reputation that could easily make you 😃. That’s right; we are approaching World Emoji Day, a time to celebrate the little characters and symbols that let us wordlessly communicate our feelings. The media site National Today, which tracks […]