Society

If only someone had miraculously turned back the clock to the good ol' days of slavery, or at least to the pre-Civil Rights era, everything would have been just fine. No one was complaining back then, not even the poor whites, for they were still far better off than the blacks and the rest of us who had trickled in afterwards.

I’m ashamed to be an American, an Italian-American, a Hispanic-American, an African-American, what have you. If there’s got to be an “American” suffix to complete the descriptor of my national identity, then I have to resign myself from now on to wear it as a badge of dishonor; and so should you!

To all the college students, celebrities, protesters, and social justice warriors crying over the election, let's get one thing straight: you aren't as special as you think you are. Get over it.

The economic divide exploded into the sunlight with the ascendance of the Tea Party movement, identified more or less with the right wing, and the Occupy movement on the left. The difference between those two phenomena was more cultural than philosophical.

Long before you get to level four and Chuck Berry’s shining red Cadillac where he was seduced some nights by groups of adoring white teen girls, you pass by the memorial to Emmitt Till, the teenage boy brutally murdered by white men for whistling at a white woman.

Along with the witch in flight and grinning and jack-o-lantern, the black cat in full arched-back fright mode is among THE iconic symbols of Halloween. Even to this day, who doesn’t feel a little charge when a black cat streaks across one’s path, especially on Halloween? Cats have been variously worshiped or reviled throughout human history, but they have almost always been seen as magical and otherworldly.

"Man up." What a curious phrase to use in the context of a wave of accusations of sexual harassment and assault.

'Age is something that we avoid talking about in our Western society. We either ridicule it or try to ignore it, or we box people in by calling them senior citizens. So I say let's bring it out into the open and shine a light on this aging process.'

But we shouldn't need the UN, or a special day, to make an effort to understand the aged, and to become not only patient but respectful.

Though it’s still very summery in much of the country, with the opening of a number of haunted attractions, costumes and candy overflowing shelves in stores, and spooky programming easing onto screens big and small, the Halloween season is upon us. Amidst the noisy, colorful pop cultural extravaganza that is contemporary Halloween in America, an element central to the extended history of Halloween — all the way back to the pre-Christian Celtic celebration of Samhain — has virtually been lost: the art of divination.